Thoughts on new Jet Drill Press?

[Joe Williams]

I have been looking at http://www.jettools.com/us/en/p/17-drill-press/716300 for a couple months, seems like a pretty interesting machine.

Never owned a drill press and have been looking at a lot of them. 5" travel seems great.

Let me know your thoughts please if you have any on it :)

Thanks!
Joe

[ken masoumi]

It looks like a decent drill press,I wonder how the " one handed belt tensioning" feature actually works,according to the manual,there's a tensioner that changes the spindle speed.

[glenn bradley]

The speed is changed by moving the belts as with other belted DP's. The tensioner is "one handed in so far as you can press it into the belt and tighten the knob with the same hand. That's nice but, not a thing to gt me excited. The 'rotated ring' depth stop would steer me away however. This is the system on my current DP and it is very sub-optimal. The simple threaded rod and nut versions are superior to my way of thinking. YMMV. Other than that it appears to be about what we get in a DP in this price range today.

[Mike Hollingsworth]

Sadly, very few drill presses made today are made to last. When my Taiwan Delta gave out and of course couldn't find parts, I nearly jumped on the $1400 Powermatic. Luckily I had patience and the next week found a nearly perfect 20 year old American Delta on the auction site for $200. 6" throw, quill lock are not available on anything but a Clausing today. These things went out at nearly 4 grand ten years ago.
305774

[Brian Tymchak]

.... 6" throw, quill lock are not available on anything but a Clausing today. These things went out at nearly 4 grand ten years ago.


The PM2800B has a 6" throw. (Not an owner, just recounting what I've read from my shopping.) As far as a real quill lock though, I don't know. (I doubt it.) Couldn't find mention of it on the web anywhere.

[Peter Aeschliman]

I actually played with this Jet DP at Rockler yesterday.

It's okay I guess. Nothing about it stood out as exceptional or bad. Just a drill press with normal features. The speed changing operation is not materially different than any other... you have to move belts on pulleys.

The table is average. Doesn't come with a fence system. The raising/lowering of the table is typical of DPs in this price range- the table wobbles as it goes up and down, and it feels like there's a little slop. Not terrible.

The big question about these machines is how smoothly they operate and how much runout they have. I didn't use the machine so I can't tell you anything about those things.

To sum up my personal view, it was fine, but really nothing special... not materially better than any of the grizzly machines I've seen in person, so probably not worth the Jet mark-up.

[Bill Graham]

I have been looking at http://www.jettools.com/us/en/p/17-drill-press/716300 for a couple months, seems like a pretty interesting machine.

Never owned a drill press and have been looking at a lot of them. 5" travel seems great.

Let me know your thoughts please if you have any on it :)

Thanks!
Joe

Typical East Asian crap. Sadly, the only way to get a decent drill press these days is to spend $2K+ or buy old iron and rebuild it.

Bill

[John McClanahan]

I have a Powermatic 1150 that has 6" of quill travel, so 5" on the Jet is nice. My drill press has the "standard" table. At first I wished for the "production" table but then realized I can build bolt on table or tables and fences to do what I want them to do so the deluxe table is would have been a waste of money for me.

John

[Ole Anderson]

It is pretty though. No quill lock and no rod style depth stop would be stoppers for me though.

[Keith Pleas]

Steel City has variable speed (Reeves drive) and reportedly low to unmeasurable runout. And a quill lock. And a split head. And 6" throw. And a 1.5hp motor. And it's $699.

[Rich Riddle]

I had one when first produced and got rid of it. Found out what others here have been saying. Find an old one and rebuild it. It's much better and has far less slop in it. For the price of a new one of those you can rebuild a good old split-case drill press. Here is the last drill press I ever bought or will ever need. Total investment is about $300 including new bearings.

305959

[Brian Tymchak]

Steel City has variable speed (Reeves drive) and reportedly low to unmeasurable runout. And a quill lock. And a split head. And 6" throw. And a 1.5hp motor. And it's $699.

That price raised my eyebrows so I checked it out and sure enough, it's true. Woodwerks (here in Columbus) has it for $525 right now. It also has a 1.5HP motor compared to the 1HP motor on the PM2800B. The PM has an additional 1" of swing, but that's not significant. The SC minimum speed is 500 rpm. I'd prefer that down to 250 to work better with large bits. But still, the price is certainly compelling enough that I'll do more investigation. Thanks for the tip Keith!

[Phil Thien]

I prefer the rotary quill stop.

I'd never buy a drill press I couldn't try-out in a store to check for quill slop.

[Phil Thien]

Steel City has variable speed (Reeves drive) and reportedly low to unmeasurable runout. And a quill lock. And a split head. And 6" throw. And a 1.5hp motor. And it's $699.

The only deal breaker on that press for me might be the speed range. Like other Reeves-drive presses, the lowest speed (500-RPM) is rather high for something of the things I do (large fly-type circle cutters, for instance).

But split head, if you can get it, makes a ton of sense.

[Joe Williams]

Thanks all, really great advice!