EVS drill press

[Tai Fu]

I skipped the drill press and just bought a milling machine.

[Charles Coolidge]

Your point #2 has me baffled, even if the pm table is more beefy the voyager isn’t sheet metal, where is your data on the deflection? We are drilling wood here (well, i am) not parts for battle ships…

As noted while I was adjusting the table to 90 with the spindle using a dual dial indicator Starrett spindle square (makes this job 1,000 times easier) I spun the spindle square around 90 degrees to check that the table was 90 degrees to the spindle front to back. With the dial indicator of truth on the table I put my arm across the front edge of the table and leaned on it heavy. I was able to get the table to deflect .003 as measured with the indicator. So I put even more weight on it, it wouldn't budge further that's pretty stout for a drill press.

See this, yes I use my drill press for all sorts of things not just wood. Those are Keystone turrets that are mechanically swaged to a circuit board kind of like a rivet. I use the anvil set on my drill press to seat them. Look now nice and even the swage is, if your drill press table deflects under load the swage will be lopsided and off center, the turret crooked.

ods22.jpg

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[Charles Coolidge]

I’ve switched entirely to Albrecht over the past few years with no regrets.

I have owned a few Albrecht R8 chucks and was going to buy an MT2 for the PM2820EVS but kind of bugged Albrecht no longer advertises max runout. I ended up going with the Llambrich instead. It's of similar quality but we'll see how it holds up over time, Albrecht's are a beast.

[Charles Coolidge]

Many times the wood/s can move more than the tolerances being discussed.

Hi Ed. Sure for a lot of jobs I would agree. Here's a real wood working job I faced a week back. I needed 4 holes 3/8 inch drilled 5.25 inches deep through some hard rock Maple. They had to align with 4 holes in a cast iron extension wing. If the drill press is not squared up, ridged and producing accurate holes that wasn't going to happen. Rare job yes, but nice that I didn't have to drill an oversized sloppy hole to make this work.

[Charles Coolidge]

Only time precision matters is fret position on guitar fretboards. But even then accuracy to 0.5mm is enough.

No precision is even more important on tube guitar amps! Guys when you are building a hardwood cabinet for a tube guitar amp at this level the cabinet quality has to be quite high.

oco219.jpg

oco221.jpg

[Mark e Kessler]

Right, but how much does the Voyager table deflect? you said "Powermatic rigidity and resistance to table deflection under load has the Nova beat" so I assumed you checked it on the Nova as well....

You "leaned on it heavy" what's heavy? again I assumed you used a known force (ie 250 N) on both drill press tables in the same location (ie X from drill center at X angle from center)

As far as Swaging your below example, even if the Voyager table is lighter seems to me doubtful the table would deflect in the center, BUT I am assuming because I would need to test at a known force, find the boundary of where it deflects and where it doesn't and what force it takes to swage the part...

As noted while I was adjusting the table to 90 with the spindle using a dual dial indicator Starrett spindle square (makes this job 1,000 times easier) I spun the spindle square around 90 degrees to check that the table was 90 degrees to the spindle front to back. With the dial indicator of truth on the table I put my arm across the front edge of the table and leaned on it heavy. I was able to get the table to deflect .003 as measured with the indicator. So I put even more weight on it, it wouldn't budge further that's pretty stout for a drill press.

See this, yes I use my drill press for all sorts of things not just wood. Those are Keystone turrets that are mechanically swaged to a circuit board kind of like a rivet. I use the anvil set on my drill press to seat them. Look now nice and even the swage is, if your drill press table deflects under load the swage will be lopsided and off center, the turret crooked.

ods22.jpg

oco206.jpg

[Tai Fu]

No precision is even more important on tube guitar amps! Guys when you are building a hardwood cabinet for a tube guitar amp at this level the cabinet quality has to be quite high.

oco219.jpg

oco221.jpg

I kinda want to build a guitar tube amp, but all the components are expensive as hell, especially all the transformers needed. Is there not a way to use a switching power supply similar to a CO2 laser power supply? Maybe if I can source components from Taobao...

As a matter of fact, Taobao has actually about doubled my purchasing power because their prices are so low.

[Edward Weber]

Hi Ed. Sure for a lot of jobs I would agree. Here's a real wood working job I faced a week back. I needed 4 holes 3/8 inch drilled 5.25 inches deep through some hard rock Maple. They had to align with 4 holes in a cast iron extension wing. If the drill press is not squared up, ridged and producing accurate holes that wasn't going to happen. Rare job yes, but nice that I didn't have to drill an oversized sloppy hole to make this work.

As I said, I want my machine setup to be accurate. I don't disagree with that.
I just think in reality, there is more variance in the bit and bolts used than the amount of run out in most any drill press, even cheap ones.
If you project has a hole .00x off I don't think it would matter or might not even be noticeable considering the above.

[Brian Holcombe]

The fact that wood moves is inconsequential to machine setup. Tight Runout is an indication that things are copacetic. Same with properly aligned parts, leaves less things to think about when problrm
solving.

[Edward Weber]

I don't disagree at all but if you adhere to the .00x tolerance do you do it for everything?
Fence to hole distance, stop-block distance and so on. A perfectly round, straight hole to the thousandth is great but is it practical? Do you need to be so precise as Larry Frank asked in a previous post.

[Charles Coolidge]

Right, but how much does the Voyager table deflect? you said "Powermatic rigidity and resistance to table deflection under load has the Nova beat" so I assumed you checked it on the Nova as well....

You "leaned on it heavy" what's heavy? again I assumed you used a known force (ie 250 N) on both drill press tables in the same location (ie X from drill center at X angle from center)

As far as Swaging your below example, even if the Voyager table is lighter seems to me doubtful the table would deflect in the center, BUT I am assuming because I would need to test at a known force, find the boundary of where it deflects and where it doesn't and what force it takes to swage the part...

Here's the Nova Voyager with table attachment at the center of the table.

nova01.jpg

nova02.jpg

Here's the Powermatic's box table structure with attachment at the column. It's grip on the column is nearly 6 inches tall and the cast iron is 5/8 inch thick.

dp05.jpg

pmdp06.jpg

[Brian Holcombe]

If you can divorce machine setup from woodworking setup tolerance or wood movement you will begin to understand where my thoughts are here. I want the machine setup as tight and accurately as possible.

Fixturing setup tolerance depends on the application, often enough my setup needs up to be very accurate for certain work. It’s just a distraction from getting the machine setup properly and doing so should be done to tolerances far tighter than then utilized in woodworking.

IE, do you want your saw blade to wobble .005” just because it “doesn’t matter” according to fact that wood moves? I assume no.

same goes here, I don’t want to cut holes .005” oversized just because.

[Charles Coolidge]

The fact that wood moves is inconsequential to machine setup. Tight Runout is an indication that things are copacetic. Same with properly aligned parts, leaves less things to think about when problem
solving.

Agreed. I find working with wood challenging enough without the added challenge of my machines being sloppy. Some like me are not that skilled at wood working, quality accurate machines gives me a shot at a successful project.

[Tom M King]

Speaking of variable speed drill presses, here's a good one. I bought it for a tractor repair job, thinking I would sell if after that job, but liked it so much, I decided to keep it. It came in handy this morning. I needed a way to lift the new mower, to be able to get to the blades easily.

Marine lifting eye with working load high enough to pull three of these mowers straight up in the air. 3/4" hole through three layers of 1/4" steel, right over fairly fragile rubber boots over steering parts. It would have been a bad job with a hand drill. A piece of cake with this.

Pictures were taken with iphone horizontal, but they still didn't transfer correctly.

[Ronald Blue]

Speaking of variable speed drill presses, here's a good one. I bought it for a tractor repair job, thinking I would sell if after that job, but liked it so much, I decided to keep it. It came in handy this morning. I needed a way to lift the new mower, to be able to get to the blades easily.

Marine lifting eye with working load high enough to pull three of these mowers straight up in the air. 3/4" hole through three layers of 1/4" steel, right over fairly fragile rubber boots over steering parts. It would have been a bad job with a hand drill. A piece of cake with this.

A mag base drill has it's place as you have indicated Tom. They are a handful to move around. They can be broke lose from if something goes wrong. We usually put a strap on it and dangle from the truck crane so it won't fall more than a few inches.