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Drill press question
In article ,
(Doug Miller) wrote:
or how deep
of an item you can put into the drill press before
it hits the "back/rear" post?
yes
Sorry, let me be more clear -- e.g. a 12" drill press measures 6" from the
column to the center of the chuck, 15" DP measures 7.5", and so on.
Just a word of warning based on my experience with a DP: Don't pay too
much attention to the "Capacity" rating unless you really need it. I
bought a 12" Delta DP thinking I usually am drilling near an edge
anyway. Sure enough, I pretty much never hit the column and the odd time
I did, some careful work with a hand drill did fine. But -- for me at
least -- I found two other factos much much more important:
- Minimum speed
- Stroke
After drilling 48 holes which all had to be double drilled 'cause my DP
didn't have enough stroke and after having a couple of "incidents" with
very large bits, I bought one with a lot more stroke and a lot lower
minimum speed. And more capacity does not always equal more stroke; even
the same capacity doesn't mean the same stroke. For example, Delta sells
2 different 16 1/2" presses which have a different stroke, even though
they look very similiar. And some of the "larger" ones have less stroke
the some of the smaller ones. And some real nice large ones have a
pretty high minimum speed for very large bits. My DP was one of the few
tools where I seriously regretted my balancing act between
cost/performance (and failed to research the problem thoroughly).
Especially since DP are one of the cheaper tools. I think I vastly
underestimated its usefulness was part of the problem.
BTW, if you don't need a lot of stroke, column space and a very low
minimum speed, the Delta 12" is real nice. Very smooth and slick.
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