Anyone own a Powermatic 2800 drill press?

[Bill Wyko]

I was just curious if anyone has a powermatic 2800 drill press? I picked one up today but haven't set it up yet. Seems like a top notch piece of equipment. I sure hope so for the price. I'll post pics the first of the week.

[Kim Spence]

My dad picked one up a few months back. I assembled it for him, and in my opinion its not all that great of a machine given the price. The owners manual has an error in the assembly instructions, can't remember exactly what it was but something with installing the table and the height adjustment crank, so keep your eye out for that.

Once we got it assembled and fired it up, it made an awful racket and vibrated badly. Popped the cover off but couldn't find anything obviously wrong so we figured the belts must have a flat spot. So we fired it up and let it run for about 20 minutes to break the belt in, seemed to help a bit but still a pretty noisy machine.

Overall fit and finish is a bit rough.

The fence system seemed kinda cheap, if I remember right the brackets that clamp to the table are plastic? My dad took it off right away and added a Rockler drill press table, which kinda defeats the purpose of the fence and outrigger supports.

If I was spending $900 on a drill press, I'd probably pass this up and go for the comparable delta, don't know the model # off hand. The delta has a couple nice advantages, one being a digital depth readout. It also allows you to easily cut your own replacable table inserts (they're square where the PM is round).

All that said, my dad did keep the PM and I think overall he is satisfied with it now with the Rockler table. Believe he did end up putting new belts on too. I'm sure you'll like it, its a decent machine, but may not be best in class in the $900 price range.

Just my 2 cents, take it for what its worth. Sorry to rain on your parade, just wanted you to hear my thoughts.