You don't need anything like .001" runout on a drill press. Stop thinking of a
drill press as a precision tool - it ISN'T. Yet my old Jet 17MF had .001"
runout on it's internal spindle taper, and with a good quality Jacobs chuck it
was about as good as a cheap DP gets. I've also seen other imports that had
little runout. It's important to realize that before I found my Jet I looked at
about 15 used drill presses, bringing my dial test indicator and mag base. Most
of the sellers didn't even know that their chuck popped out of the spindle.

If you are stuck on accuracy go find $1000 and buy a good used mill drill (less
if you get real lucky). Or go all the way to a knee mill.

GWE

Alex wrote:
Grant,

you wrote an excellent article.
As for import DP it looks to me that you won't get anything with 0.001
runout for less than $400-500 and even that number is very optimistic.

Alex


Grant Erwin wrote:

Alex wrote:

I have a quill play in my Frox Shop 17" drill press.
When rotating with no load the runout is just 0.002" but if you move
chuck with your hands back and forth test indicator shows 0.030
runout. Woodstock Int. (manufacturer of all Fox Shop tools) warranty
guy is saying that I am not suppose to try to move chuck while
measuring runout. "The right way" to measure runout is to do it while
drill runs on lowest speed with no load.



They are correct. You aren't returning the machine because of runout,
you are returning the machine for excessive slop in the quill. Get
your money back, and next time read
http://www.tinyisland.com/htbdrillp.txt before buying one, and don't
buy an import DP without inspecting it in person.

GWE