Drill presses are an essential tool for serious woodworking or metalworking projects. Even if you’re just making stuff for your home, they might be useful; for instance, do you know how to put together your child’s toys? Well, if you get a drill press you can also drill the holes that are needed before assembling. Having one of these machines in your shop is very convenient for this kind of thing. So what is the drill press and what is the best drill press for woodworking.
A drill press allows you to perform some tasks that would be impossible without it. One example is drilling holes in a precise manner and at a given height. For example, drilling pocket holes with an angled jig require the use of a drill press. Another useful task that you cannot perform without a drill press is enlarging or creating holes using drill bits. Whether a novice or expert a drill press will provide you with a woodworking capability that you will eventually need.
What Is A Drill Press Used For In Woodworking?
A drill press is a crucial part of the woodworking tool inventory. Its capabilities add a variety of options you can use. When you think of a drill press you typically think of the tool as just drilling holes in the material. It does a lot more than that. It sands and provides precision drilling. This gives you perfectly round furniture legs and also precision holes for woodworking joins.
The drill press is an incredibly versatile tool that can be used for many things from drilling holes in wood or metal. It’s similar to the handheld power drill, but instead of pressing on it with your hand, you fix it down onto its base and turn a handle or pedal to make it rotate. This enables you to hold your piece steady while drilling it.
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A drill press also comes with a table that you can attach pieces to so that you don’t have to hold them in place yourself. This makes the job much easier and reduces fatigue, allowing for more precise work.
Drill presses usually come equipped with many different types of drills that screw into the end of the bit holder. This enables you to drill holes of all different sizes and shapes.
The most common type of drill press is a benchtop drill press, but they also come in floor models that sit on the ground, resembling a metal version of an old sewing machine. These are much more expensive and larger than benchtop models, which makes them ideal for working on heavy machinery, but not much else.
Therefore, a benchtop drill press is more than sufficient to work with these projects. Benchtop models are usually cheaper too since they are only used by hobbyists or people who do small metalworks now and then.
Best Drill Press For Woodworking
- Side-to-side tilting of the platform table, this can be 45 degrees or, for more high-end models, a full 360 degrees allowing drilling at all angles.
- LED lights/laser guides to represent exactly where your drill bit will start drilling
BILT HARD 2.3-Amp 8 inch 5-Speed Drill Press with Drill Vise & Worklight, Tabletop Drilling Machine
What Considerations Do you Need To Think Of When Buying A Drill Press
When deciding whether to buy a drill press you should consider how often you will use it, what kind of projects you are planning to do and if the machine would be useful indoors or outdoors.
Assuming that you want to use your drill press for home improvement tasks I can name another thing that might influence your decision; if you have a garage or a basement dedicated to your workshop it would be a good idea to get a drill press. Many machines come in 2 pieces that must be assembled, and this process can take some time. Having a drill press mounted at each end of the workbench makes things much easier.
One last thing to consider when buying your drill press is the chuck. Even if you don’t use it very often, a 3/4″ chuck can come in really handy; you can use it to hold all kinds of different bits and accessories. It’s also worth noting that some machines (mostly floor standing ones) have chucks that can be locked, which is a great feature to have when you want to perform some drilling tasks.
Mobile Or Stationary Drill Press
If you don’t have any place to mount a drill press and want to buy one, you should opt for a floor-standing model. Even the most compact models make it hard to work on tasks like installing drawer slides or making pattern templates (especially pattern templates). A floor-standing drill press is also great for production work; if you need to produce many pieces of the same type of projects, having one of these in your workshop would be really useful.
When buying a drill press you should consider how heavy it is too; if you plan to move the machine around in your workshop or store it in a closet when not using it then you should choose one that’s easy to move (for instance, most manufacturers offer mobile bases).
Drill Press Type
The two main types of drill presses are benchtop and stationary. The smaller, lighter model is more portable while heavy with larger capacity but fewer features than floor type drills that cannot be moved around easily due to their weight restrictions – these models have an added bonus though in being able to perform higher quality work on large projects.
Drill Press Size
Here are the two elements you need to consider: Swing and Spindle travel.
The swing is the distance between the drill press’s central column and the spindle, times two. This determines the maximum width of wood material you can use so you can drill in the center of a woodworking project.
The Spindle is determined by the depth your drill press can go down as you rotate the handle.
Drill Press Power
To calculate the power of a drill press you would calculate watts. All models show amp and volt figures on the nameplate. When you multiply these numbers together and you determine watts. Of course, the higher the wattage, the more powerful the tool, hence the tougher wood materials through which it will be able to drill through.
Drill Press Speed
Another great consideration is variable rotation speeds for efficient drilling in different wood materials. Your higher-end models have the capability of more speeds. The bench-top models provide five or six speeds, while a good floor model typically has as many as 16. So you ask why does the rotation speed matter. It is because the denser the wood material you’re drilling, the slower the drill bit speed you will need.
Options To Consider
There are many options you can consider. These options may not be needed upfront but definitely help you with your efforts while using the drill press.
