Silly Question About Drill Presses

[Jared McMahon]

My next major purchase will be a drilling machine, either a drill press or a mill/drill. Among the other key aspects in choosing one is quill travel... but it occurred to me I wasn't sure why. It seems like bits often don't have very long shanks, and run-out (presumably) becomes more of an issue at the extreme of quill travel. This question could very well be born out of ignorance, but with all that said, how useful is it really to have 5"+ travel as opposed to something more conservative like 3-1/2" or 4"?

Ladies and gentlemen, please enlighten me.

[Kent A Bathurst]

I had your basic Delta 14-1/2" DP. Forget the quill travel - 3" maybe?

Anyway - that did not routinely come up as a problem, but when it did, it was a real pain. One annoying detail that comes up frequently is that the shorter quill travel means you are adjusting the table height more often, to get within the travel range for that workpiece and bit length. But beyond that, when you need a deeper hole [and my 1/2" bradpoint is 6", plus I have some extra-length bits], you have to securely clamp the workpiece in place, drill as far as you can, raise the table - being very careful to stay in line - and drill again. Then, reverse those steps to get your bit out.

My current DP has 6" travel. Very nice. I can't give you the $ value tradeoff - doubt that number actually exists - but I'd pay more for the longer travel.

[Brad Patch]

My vintage WalkerTurner quill travel is in the 3.5-4 inch range. While it would be nice to have more travel, I can't remember a instance where I really needed more travel.

I previously used a Jet Floor model drill press, what a piece POS. Supplied chuck very crude, fit and finish poor, excessive vibration,no quill lock. Could never make it drill a deep hole without the bit wandering (probably due to quill tolerances.)

I would strongly suggest to hold out for a well maintained vintage USA made machine.

[Van Huskey]

My next major purchase will be a drilling machine, either a drill press or a mill/drill. Among the other key aspects in choosing one is quill travel... but it occurred to me I wasn't sure why. It seems like bits often don't have very long shanks, and run-out (presumably) becomes more of an issue at the extreme of quill travel. This question could very well be born out of ignorance, but with all that said, how useful is it really to have 5"+ travel as opposed to something more conservative like 3-1/2" or 4"?

Ladies and gentlemen, please enlighten me.

As with most things it all depends on what you are going to be drilling. I would say that 99% of MY drilling while I have been woodworking could have been done with just over 3" of stroke.

I am all for having TIR low and it does mutiply with longer bits and with most drill presses it is worse at full travel than at 1-2" BUT if you are working completely with wood I have rarely if ever seen runout be an issue. Now if the DP has a stupid high TIR then it can be an issue with wood but then you have a DP that is not functioning correctly.

[pat warner]

Good question.
In my view, lengthy quill travel is a way out of a compromised setup but at the expense of runout, (as you suggest). Appreciate, that a drill is a long rod supported at only one end untill it's ~1 diameter in its target. As such, and runout being the enemy it is, the shortest drill possible is the most likely drill to drill on center with the least amount of squiggle. A long drill and substantial quill travel invite runout.
Note, unless deep holes without secondary drilling operations are standard dalliances, the extended quill travel is usually not exploited. If you hate changing table height, close order center drilling is not required, nor are secondary/tertiary drilling operations ordinary, then extended quill travel will be appreciated.
Do dig, however, that 6+"of quill travel demands good & expensive quill assembly & engineering as well as 3 support bearings minimum.

[Jared McMahon]

I had a response half-way written but I was worried it would turn this thread into a series of horror stories and disputes about bad drill press makes and models. So instead I'll just say thanks for the opinions and thoughts, it helps put things in context. Given my shop set-up, my current tools and my applications, it's looking like I'd be wise to get a mill/drill that makes reasonable compromises on things like quill stroke in exchange for the capabilities it provides in other respects.

And I'm keeping my bit brace close by.

[Eddie Darby]

I work with large Forstner bits, larger than the drill press chuck, and usually have to drill 5+ inches in depth, so for me a 6" quill travel is a must.

If you are drilling on a workpiece that has many different levels to it, the ability to slide the thick workpiece under the chuck until you reach the deeper part of the workpiece without having to crank the table up and down for each piece, is more efficient.

If the table didn't swing about, and loose it's centering, when cranking it up and down, then quill travel would not be so important.

[Jay Rasmussen]

Jared,
Mill/Drill, if you can swing the cost I highly recommend getting one. After two drill presses that’s what I have. I was able to get a used one at a great price but still not cheap. I think the M/D offers 10X the capabilities compared to a drill press. Everything wood related as well as metal working. Great for making brackets and miscellaneous parts for wood working fixtures. Mine has a digital readout and X axis power feed. With a little imagination setups are endless.
Mine has 5" of quill travel with a great stop.

[Brent VanFossen]

My 8" drill press has less than 2 inches of quill travel. Let's say I need a 3/8 diameter hole through a part 1 1/2 inches thick. I set the table and drill the hole.

Now, let's say I want a 1/8 inch hole through the same part. I remove the big bit, and insert the small one (which is also probably shorter). I'll often find that the small bit is too short to drill the hole because the quill travel isn't long enough to compensate. I can raise the table, but the table will shift when I do it, and that will throw off any fence or stop I have set up.

With a longer quill travel (like the 6" travel on my 18-inch press), the quill travel is enough that I rarely have to move the table. The greater quill travel makes it so you don't often have to raise or lower the table. It gives you options beyond drilling deep holes.

[John Coloccia]

The only drill press under $1000 (and/or thereabouts) I would buy new today is the big Delta 18-900. I'm still not really happy with it because it's missing basic features (like a quill lock, for example...some will disagree but a plunge lock is not nearly the same as a quill lock...not from an ergonomic OR performance point of view...nope), but were I to buy one new, that's what I would buy and it seems to be reasonably well built. There are lots of metal working drill presses out there that are nice...they're expensive and none of them have articulating tables...at least none that I know of. You would typically clamp your metal work in a drill press vice and use that to tilt it.

Other than that, I would buy a good, used drill press, or if you want to save even more money, buy a mediocre used drill press. It won't be perfect and neither will a consumer grade new drill press...but at least it will be cheaper.

But I digress. Did you say something about quill travel? LOL. Yeah, it's nice to have, but a drill press that makes straight, clean holes is nicer to have IMHO, and it's surprisingly difficult to find one designed for woodworking. That said, the Delta seems pretty reasonable on both counts, though they insist on slapping this goofy laser on the thing which makes me think they're just getting lucky with the ones I've seen so far. I'd love to measure the runout on 20 or 30 of these things to see how they're really coming out.

I tried to buy a Mill/Drill last year, but Grizzly was backordered for several months, and I never got around to reinvestigating it. I've since lost interest. It's just as well as I don't believe the cheap mill/drill I was looking at would perform any better. It would probably be even more frustrating to have a tool that doesn't do two things well rather than just stick with what I have, which only doesn't do one thing well.

[glenn bradley]

I felt that 6" of quill was absolutely necessary when I was planning my DP upgrade. A great deal came along on a lesser machine with just under 4" of travel. Its been years and I have never even thought about it. Live and learn ;-)

[Jim German]

I have a small benchtop drill press and would love to have more quill travel. I'm constantly having to adjust the table height. Keep in mind that the difference in height of a spade or a fostner bit, and a small 3/32" bit is almost 3" and if you're drilling anything thicker than 1" you're gonna want more quill travel.

If its a well designed, well built drill press run-out shouldn't be an issue regardless of quill travel.

[Steve Griffin]

Funny how the drill press is so important to some, and an afterthought tool to others.

I've a got a larger bench top model, and don't think I've ever needed anything more. Actually once or twice I needed a really deep hole, and used the DP as far as I could and then a hand drill to finish it off. More "quill" travel wouldn't have helped anyway.

If there was one stationary tool in my shop I could live without, it's the drill press. So base your purchase on what you need for your style of woodworking. If you don't even know, buy a small one and upgrade if you find it's holding you back.

[ian maybury]

I guess it's always going to be a case of what jobs you run into.

Straight away a lot of these cheap drills have chucks and tapers that are not machined accurately, and that create a lot of run out.

The most common issue I seem to run into with short quill travel is the situation where having drilled a hole you need to enlarge it, or to drill a deep countersink/stepped bore - and find I can't get the second longer larger drill into the chuck without dropping the table first. This is a bit of a double whammy, because while it's not too hard to get the table centred again if you can drop your drill into an already drilled hole - you often can't do that if the second drill is larger.

A table that would hold its position while being raised and lowered would help a lot in this situation.

Another issue i run into from time to time is lateral reach when drilling a big part. I'd be very inclined to take a close look at one of those 'beam' type drilling machines where the head is mounted on a horizontal column too and can be moved. No doubt there's downsides to this.

Another limitation of cheap drills is vibration/inability to absorb it - they very quickly get into all sorts of chattering and the like, especially if drilling even small holes in metal.

The other useful feature would be electronically variable speed. Changing belts and washing your hands to get rid of the resulting black dirt which will spoil your workpiece wears thin pretty quickly.

All in all it points towards a scenario where the drill press needs to be treated much like any other floor machine in budget terms. There's all sorts of cheap and limited stuff you can buy very cheaply, but it seems very much you have to put out significant amounts of money if you want to cover the bases with an industrial quality machine....

ian

[Bill White]

My Craftsman KingSeely has about 4 1/2" max. Never been a real problem.
Bill