Has anyone here used Micro-Mark's #82959 drill press?
(Note there is also a link to the owners manual, which has an exploded parts diagram.)
It appears to be made by Sieg industries of Shanghai, the same company that makes the mini-lathe and mini-mill sold by Micro-Mark, Harbor Freight, and others.
The price is a bit high but maybe not too bad if the quality is reasonable. Obviously the capacity is limited, but I don't plan to drill anything much larger than 5/16" in wood or 3/16 in metal.
For me the attraction of this drillpress is that it only weighs 27 lbs, which makes it semi-portable. I've seen smaller home-built drillpresses, but all the commercially made ones seem to weigh at least 50 lbs, which is fine if you're going to bolt it down and never move it. I've used portable "drill stands" but I've never found one that can really hold a drill securely (they're better than hand-holding the drill, but that's not saying much).
I've looked at a bunch of "home shop" web pages, and have not found anyone who will admit to owning this drill press-- but it's been in Micro-Mark's catalog for a long time, I wonder if they've sold any?
Hmm ... beware that you will need a reduced shank drill to get to your 5/16", as that is larger than the maximum capacity of the supplied chuck. And since the spindle is a JT-1 (Jacobs Taper 1), I'm not at all sure that you can get any larger chuck to fit it.
That is what would make me steer away from it -- but I need to drill larger holes and in tougher materials. I do have a smaller drill press (A Cameron Precision sensitive drill press -- 0-1/8" capacity, but even that one is bolted down to the workbench so it does not shift as I'm using it.
However -- *if* the fit of the quill to the headstock casting is good, and if there is little to no side play relative to the column, it might make a fairly nice and inexpensive substitute for a sensitive drill press, if you're not going down below a #80 bit. In that case, I would replace the drill chuck with a 0-1/8" Albrecht with a JT-1 socket.
Also -- since it does not mention a Morse taper, the spindle is one piece, so you can't replace the arbor with a new one if the existing one gets bent from using it for something too large for the machine.
The drill stands also allow the drill's center to move far too much from side to side -- at least those which I have used many years ago did.
I'm sure that they have, or you would see it in their "Closeouts" section. It is just that the people who purchase one of this size probably don't put up such web pages.
Looking at it, I like the speed control, including the fact that they realize that they can't maintain sufficient torque through the whole needed speed range without a belt change. I particularly like the digital depth readout.
I would like the feed to have three levers equally spaced, instead of just a single lever. That would make certain operations easier to control with precision.
I would like it to have a MT-1 spindle, so I could change arbors.
I would probably prefer more torque than it has available. (Note that I have never had a chance to try one, so it might surprise me, but I somehow doubt it.)
Personally, I would rather (and did) go for a floor-standing drill press which has plenty of speeds (16 in my case), a Morse Taper spindle (MT-2), and enough mass so it won't move all over the place while I'm trying to work. A bench press as the *only* drill press is just insufficient.
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