Porter Cable Drill Press at Lowes..

[Joe Leigh]

Has anyone purchased or seen this new Porter Cable drill press that Lowes is selling? Looks like a nice unit for the price. The quill handle and quill are rock solid and smooth, as are the quill stop assemblies. I extended the quill fully and felt no runout front to back or side to side. It comes with a work light and laser crosshairs as well. It is 15" and has 12 speeds.
I can't find it on the Porter Cable website and there are no reviews currently available.
Anybody check it out??

[Mike Wellner]

Has anyone purchased or seen this new Porter Cable drill press that Lowes is selling? Looks like a nice unit for the price. The quill handle and quill are rock solid and smooth, as are the quill stop assemblies. I extended the quill fully and felt no runout front to back or side to side. It comes with a work light and laser crosshairs as well. It is 15" and has 12 speeds.
I can't find it on the Porter Cable website and there are no reviews currently available.
Anybody check it out??

Probably a rebadged Black and Decker

[Jim Terrill]

Probably a rebadged Black and Decker

Really? Of which B&D drill press, considering they only make hand drills? More likely it is a redesigned delta.

[Mike Wellner]

Really? Of which B&D drill press, considering they only make hand drills? More likely it is a redesigned delta.

I seen a black and decker drill press at the local ACE.

http://www.farm-home.com/mn/v11_ssidisp.mvc?FRGL07+TPD+005260+dispCat+0610+JDI STRIB2610-0792~~~~~~~

So thats a rebadged Delta.

I have seen a black and decker scrollsaw that is obviously a rebagded Delta.

[Joe Leigh]

Here's the link..

http://www.lowes.com/pd_78742-46069-PCB660DP_0_?productId=3162489&Ntt=drill%20press&Ntk=i_products&pl=1&currentURL=/pl__0__s?newSearch=true$Ntt=drill%20press$y=6$x=32

Any chance it's made specifically for the BORGS?

[Richard Dooling]

I just purchased and started using this drill press and I have to say they have done a very good job designing this machine including a great quick release depth stop. Belts are easy to change with an easy to use tensioning lever and adequate movement in the idler pulley. Add a 4" quill travel.

Build quality seems good but it is still a new machine so we shall see. Mine did come with the lamp shade squashed but hopefully they will make good on this.

At $300 this appears to be a solid machine. And please - I love old iron too but I had to have a crank rise table and after four months of finding no great deal on Craig's list, I decided to buy.:rolleyes:

.

[Dan Karachio]

Interesting. This is newer (branding/badging...) and a lower price. It now matches the 15" Rigid at Lowes also at $299. What is a person to do, I was almost set to go buy the Rigid. Laser doesn't do it for me, but an extra 1/2 hp and 1/4" of quill travel might, but I simply do not trust Delta/Porter Cable any more.

[Brendan Plavis]

That makes me feel a little better regarding the bandsaw that I am about to pull the trigger on, now that we know PC are actually creating quality tools.. People were telling me that all they were creating was junk(I was also reading some of this information) but, I feel that this may be solely speculation...

[Richard Dooling]

IMHO these days you must judge each tool on its own merits. In this price range we are not talking the uber-high end of quality. I do not and cannot endorse the entire PC line but this particular tool looks pretty good at this price point. I do think this is engineered to compete with the Ridgid, and I think it does a great job. Oh, try to find a Ridgid DP assembled in the store so you can look at it. I could not in two adjacent cities.

A lot of people commenting on these tools also seem to long for a bygone day. I live in the here and now. Show me a quality tool made in the USA and I'll probably buy it. I do in fact buy a lot of older hand tools and I own of all things a Sprunger power jointer. Meanwhile I get tired of the opinion that everything made today is garbage. It reminds me of the old Saturday Night Live routine. "If it's not Scottish, it's crap!"

Please!

BTW, this is my first DP with a laser. I thought that was just stupid - 'till I used it all day today.


.

[Jesse Wilson]

I've had mine a few days and love it. Very nice quality and I ended up OTD for $197. I used my HF 20% off coupon which they accepted and I paid with a gift card I bought off of Ebay at 85% of face value. On top of that I used bing/ebay bucks for the gift card purchase so I got another 9% back also. ;)

[Peter Quinn]

So this PC into machinery thing is true? Scary. Any reason those folks at B&D felt they couldn't market the Delta name to Lowes shoppers? Too confusing for the pea brained DIY crowd I suspect, what with all those faucets and toilets just down the aisle with the same name? (that was sarcasm regarding B&D intentions, not a shot at DIY folks of which I am often one).

For the longest time PC has meant serious quality hand held power tools. Some of the best ever made. I have a PC router that cost more than either the drill press or BS, and probably weights more too.:D I have a porta planer that cost more too. How can they make a drill press for less than the cost of a power planer? Why have they stopped making many of their best tools (porta plane, big belt sander, laminate trimmer 310) and why are they putting their name on so much generic stuff?

B&D is a hardcore capitalist bean driven firm IMO that cares not about its customer or its products. Their main goal? SELL MORE CRAP. ANY CRAP. ANY OLE CRAP YOU WILL BUY, THEY WILL SELL. So its their company, not mine, but I felt like a PC customer, and now I feel like a former customer. Used to be I could reach for a PC product knowing I was getting some of the best stuff. Now I have to wonder "Is this like the old stuff that I count on, or is it some franchised junk meant to be foisted on the unwitting blue borg shopper who might use it twice a year. I make my living such as it is with some of these tools and can't afford to gamble on junk.

So thats my rant for now, thanks for listening. I guess they pooped on the Black and Decker name to the point it was beyond hope as a power tool brand even for the occasional user home owner target audience. That will happen when you sell junk with your name on it. Firestorm? Lets face it, they got the storm part right. S**T Storm was more like it. Now they sell some Delta stuff, some Black and Decker stuff, some actual PC stuff, all under the PC logo, and the consumer is left to figure out which is what? Nice way to trade brand name recognition for a few bucks and any trust the old customer base had left in them.

[Dan Karachio]

Well, I ran up to my Lowes, but they still have the older Delta 16 1/2". It is at about $350, but they seem to only have the floor model and it looks a little abused. It was voted best floor stander in a FWW review a while back... Hmm.... can you actually ask for a deal at Lowes?

[Dave Lehnert]

Porter Cable and Dewalt were comparable, competing brands in the market.
Black and Decker (Owner of DeWalt) purchased Porter Cable and to no surprise made the PC brand a step down from DeWalt (with exception of a tool like the biscuit jointer) Why compete with yourself?
I am sure if everything was rosy in the PC world they would have never been sold.

Brand names are tossed around so much today names in themselves mean nothing. You have to judge tools on their own merits.

The only brand name woodworking tool I still have 100% confidence in is Shopsmith. You may not agree it is the best tools to use but no one can complain about the build quality. You have a tool for life.