On 15 Jan 2004 10:23:34 -0800, (Ronnie Lyons, Meridian, Idaho) wrote:
if you had a choice between a big drill press, or a mill/drill machine
for another $150, which would you take?. I'm not quite sure what all I
can do with a mill-drill, other than cut slots in stuff. Can I do most
of my drilling with a mill-dril? Thanks!
Ronnie

As Grant said, it depends on what you mean by a big drill press.
A friend of mine has a drill press that weighs about 20 tons (out
of a railroad repair shop). That's a big drill press. It can easily
drill a 4 inch diameter hole 36 inches from the edge of a piece
of 2 inch thick plate in one go.

OTOH I have an old Rockwell drill press that doesn't weigh much
over 250 pounds. Compared to a hand drill, that's a big drill press,
but a half inch hole in mild steel is about all you can ask of it.

If you mean the latter, then a mill/drill is a better choice (my
mill/drill weighs about 700 pounds). Crude rule of thumb with
machine tools, mass is your friend. When choosing between
machine tools, the heavier one will almost always be the better
choice.

I use my mill/drill for drilling much more often than I use my
drill press. As a matter of fact, I set up a joint jigger on the
drill press a couple of years ago to fishmouth some long pipe,
and it is still there. In other words, that's the only thing I've
done with the drill press in the last couple of years. Everything
else is either drilled with the mill/drill, or with my Bridgeport
style knee mill.

The one advantage of my drill press is that it is light enough to
drag out in the middle of the shop for drilling holes in very long
or awkwardly shaped pieces that would be difficult to position
on either of the mills. That's because the mills are lined up
along the walls of the shop along with the lathes and other
heavy tools, and would interfere with each other when working
on very long pieces.

But that's very rarely been an issue in my shop. The pipe was
the last example where that applied. If you'll mostly be drilling
near the ends of long stock in a crowded shop, that might be
more important to you than it is to me.

Gary