Drill press opinions
 

I'm looking for a drill press to do safety wire and other projects.

Is a dedicated drill press much different than a drill press where you mount your own cordless drill?

Latter obviously is alot cheaper.

i've never used anything but a vise and a drill for safety wire, and it worked ok, they make tools to make this easier. if you're only going to be sefety wiring i'd skip the drill press.

that said a real drill press would would work awesome. and yes, a real drill press is a lot different from a drill

Vastly, yes.

A drill press needn't be huge or expensive to be quite useful, however. For instance, this is the one which I currently have in my garage: Shop Skil 10" Drill Press with Laser Guide at Lowes.com

It's light enough that if I need the bench space free I can easily pick it up and put it below the bench, though of course it's so compact that this isn't often necessary. Despite its size, it's entirely adequate for probably 99% of the tasks that I require of a drill press. It also makes a convenient and stable place to chuck up wire wheel when I need to clean a small part.

I have a bench top one and use it for almost everything. I think the nicest thing I've found is chucking up bolts and using some sand paper followed by scotchbrite to polish a bolt. I did my entire front suspension on my bike in about 15 minutes (roughly 20 bolts).

I'd recommend the biggest you can get though. If you have the floor space, get a stand up model, and put the biggest milling vice from HF that'll fit. I have their littlest one and it fits, but barely. Eats up practically all of my Z travel. It's great for positioning the part for drilling. Measure, center punch, position, drill. Easy peasy.

I'd honestly trust HF drill presses as well. I don't have experience with them, but it's hard to f up a big hunk of metal and a motor. You shouldn't be expecting to do any precision milling on it, that's for sure.

yeah, theres a big difference. I still dont have one myself. But they are a great and valuable tool to have. I guess it depends on how much you work on stuff.

I use one of these things

http://www.justbridgeports.com/osc/main.jpg

Its pretty handy :]