Input on 18 year old King drill press.

[Chris Harper]

Found an older King Industrial drill press on Craigslist. He finally sent me a picture and what was listed on the spec card, which reads as follows:

MODEL SF-16J, CAPACITY 16mm, VOLTAGE 110V, FREQUENCY 60 Hz, SPEED 12, MFGDATE 1993. He wants $250 for it.

Can anyone advise on the quality of these and the asking price? It's about an hours drive so I want to make sure he's in the right ball park before driving out there to check for spindle play, arbor runout, etc.

[Peter Kelly]

At that price, pass on it. I think you can buy a new 13" King drill press for less than $300 CAD.

[david brum]

Unless I'm missing something, that King Industrial would be an older generic Taiwanese drill press. It's probably OK, but also probably not worth that much money unless used machinery is really scarce in your area. Something like that would typically sell for $75-150 on our local cl. The fit and finish on older Taiwanese machines is fairly primitive, not as nice as what you'd expect now. You also have to suspect bearings, belts, etc on older machines.

In defense of old Taiwanese drill presses, I have one which has been reliable since the '80s. It's not fancy, but it does the job.

[Chris Harper]

Thanks. I thought $250 was kind of high but thought (hoped) perhaps King DPs from that era were diamonds in the rough. I can afford new but just don't see myself using a DP a lot. I'll keep looking.