Okay, so I am thinking of replacing my little HF 8" - 5 speed bench top drill press. It has actually served me well. I am not a huge HF fan, but I have had good luck with some of my HF tools. The quill had a ton of slop as delivered, but that was easily adjusted out. Since the majority of my work (mostly luthier work) is light duty this drill press really served well most of the time within its several limitations.
So what has it NOT done that I'd like:
- The table does not have a geared height adjustment. This is a fairly major hassle IMO.
- It does not have a long enough stroke length. Two inches is pretty short.
- You can't drill far enough from the edge of the material. The center of the spindle is only 4" from the column. This is a limitation more often than I'd like.
- It is a little under powered.
- A little lower low speed would be nice as would easier speed changes.
- The whole thing isn't real high quality. It actually has worked well for a few years so i am not completely bummed, but better quality would be a nice.
To be fair... Most of these drawbacks apply to most of the models in this size regardless of brand.
This one has served well enough that I might actually consider another HF model in a bit larger model with some of the lacking features added, but I am tempted to spring for something in a nicer brand.
Given my needs and available space I will most likely stick with a bench top model. If a nice older Delta or something similar were to show up on craigslist I would not rule out used. I don't need to spindle sand on the drill press (I have a dedicated Triton spindle sander) and generally don't need bells and whistles, just a solid drilling machine.
Thoughts? Suggestions?