Ryan, I a concerned that no one has addressed the part of your
question relating to your project.

You state you wanted to bore some nice straight holes in steel beams.
What size and shape of beams? How long? What size holes?

A drill press is the worst machine you could buy if you want to drill
beams used in building construction. What you want is a portable drill
with a magnetic base. I a not sure what you call them, but you take
the drill to the beam, not the beam to the drill.

You would probably want to rent the machine, because they are pretty
spendy and don't have many shop uses.

Paul in Redmond, Oregon



(Ryan Wright) wrote in message om...
I could also title this thread, "Help me spend my money".

OK, so I'm just starting to get into metalworking, and my first two
purchases are a chop saw (bought it) and a drill press (still
looking). I need to cut some steel beams and bore nice, straight holes
in them for bolting a metal frame together. I'll also be doing some
welding, but that's another topic alltogether.

I'd like this press to be my first major purchase toward building a
good machine shop and learning metalworking techniques. So, on to my
questions:

1. What else can I do with a nice press besides drill straight holes?
I admit I know very little about metalworking. I'm into woodworking
and have built some very nice pieces of furniture, but I've only ever
used a drill press to make a straight hole. What else are they used
for?

2. What sort of features should I be looking for in a press?

3. Can you recommend a good press that will work well both for metal
and woodworking?

Thanks in advance for your advice!

-Ryan