Drill press vs cordless drill for case work
Dec 26, 2005 at 12:17 AM Post #16 of 22
I have a nibbler, but most chassis material is too thick for it. I also have a unibit, but I was hoping for the nice clean edges of a punch.

I might be able to make do with a drill press and the larger 1 3/16" unibit -- the one I have only goes up to 7/8" I think.

I have seen the punch kits for sale on ebay. Now that I know some of the brand names, I'll look into it further.

Is the drill press mentioned apartment friendly? Unfortunately, I have no garage, so much of this is done on the dining room table
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Dec 26, 2005 at 5:02 AM Post #17 of 22
Quote:

Originally Posted by motherone
Is the drill press mentioned apartment friendly? Unfortunately, I have no garage, so much of this is done on the dining room table


Well, I don't know how apartment friendly a drill press is and who your interior designer is
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, but the Delta I mentioned is a benchtop model, stands around 2.5' high, and isn't so heavy as to be a real PITA to move. You'll have metal and or other material shavings all over the place also, which are easy to deal with on concrete... probably less so on carpet. It has its own light, which helps as you could position it for easist cleanup and not best room lighting.
 
Dec 26, 2005 at 9:08 AM Post #18 of 22
Quote:

Originally Posted by Pars
Well, I don't know how apartment friendly a drill press is and who your interior designer is
eek.gif
, but the Delta I mentioned is a benchtop model, stands around 2.5' high, and isn't so heavy as to be a real PITA to move. You'll have metal and or other material shavings all over the place also, which are easy to deal with on concrete... probably less so on carpet. It has its own light, which helps as you could position it for easist cleanup and not best room lighting.



Hmm.. that should be alright. I usually lay out paper towels or plastic to catch the shavings when I'm doing a lot of drilling. In terms of size, as long as it's under 125 pounds, I shouldn't have any problem moving it back into one of my closets. The GF probably wouldn't appreciate me leaving it out, even though she does like that industrial look
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Dec 26, 2005 at 4:12 PM Post #19 of 22
I myself have had the problem of slightly out holes using a corded drill.

Main issue with it was that it was very heavy. Not that I couldn't lift it or anything, no problems there, it was just that much harder to align it properly and keep it straight.

It did a very good job of the actual drilling, just nowhere near as accurate or precise as a drill press.
 
Dec 27, 2005 at 8:01 AM Post #20 of 22
I'd prefer the drill press for casework, but honestly if I didn't have a cordless drill yet I would buy one before I got a drill press (having both myself) even though it meant I was making that minor sacrifice in my audio work until I got a drill press someday.

I don't know that you need an expensive (as expensive as a drill press) cordless drill though, I find my 1/2" corded drill WAY more powerful than any cordless drill and would suggest a corded drill trumps a high-end cordless and can be bought with the $ difference between high-end and fair quality cordless drill. It might be a bit different if you were doing construction work and needed to drill concrete or 2 dozen floorboards or whatever on a remote job site but for casework alone I just wouldn't buy an expensive cordless drill, especially just starting out on a tool collection and having held out without one until now.

I'd tend to think a "good" drill press is a few times more expensive than a good cordless drill too, $100 Delta is a good buy but more what I would call entry-level, mininal acceptible quality for more precision-oriented work rather than seeing it as "good" vs a really horrible one being "bad" as most of the rest in the sub $120 range are relatively low quality, low end. "Good" might be considered $500 and up range, though it's generally a larger press than casework needs.

The Delta 10" looks like a great value for it's size, but a bit underpowered for the jobs you'd do with a larger drill press. It's large enough for this kind of work but consider that some drill presses last decades, are handed down to your children years from now while a cordless drill is all but dead from battery failure in 10 years - less time if you use it regularly, and after that much use it may not make sense to buy a pair of new battery packs, depending what kind of jobs you were doing, the wear on it.

I suppose I'm suggesting that, supposing something like a $160 budget, and having neither of these yet, I'd get the $100 Delta press and a $60 cordless drill. I wouldn't bother getting a much cheaper drill press though, since I suspect you are young not having a cordless drill yet and that means you (hopefully) have a long life ahead of you and more $ spent on a drill press might benefit you for half a century rather than single-digit # of years. Because of that, if you see yourself doing anything more than casework with your drill press, I'd budget a few hundred $ at least.
 
Dec 27, 2005 at 8:28 AM Post #21 of 22
Quote:

Originally Posted by Pars
Well, for drill presses if you have a Lowes around, they have a Delta benchtop drill press which is quite nice for $99, I think its a 9".


I have the Home Depot equivalient of this which is a Ryobi. Same price, specs are pretty similar, no light on this one, but it does have speed adjustment. So far it has worked pretty well.
 

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