Jet drill press, floor, or bench style?

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fangtinge

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Oct 24, 2015
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I'm just starting getting into knife making, and I am looking at drill presses. I figured it's worth getting a very good press right out of the gate rather than getting alow quality one only to upgrade later.
The Jet DP's look really nice and I'm wondering if you guys think the floor model would be better.
Am I completely overdoing this with this expensive of a press? Maybe I should get something less to start after all. I'm not sure. I've never regretted getting a great tool however.
Thanks for any input.
 
Trust me, the more drill press you get the happier you will be. Get a floor model and you will be much happier when drilling out handles and such. A rock solid and beefy column is needed for drilling out lots of handle holes. A non-wandering quill is needed for accuracy. All these come as standard on a floor model ( usually).

Of course, you can get a knee mill and have it do drilling as well as milling ... which you will eventually want to do, too. Little countertop mills are fairly useless, so don't waste money on them.
 
Drill press is like most anything else, the bigger the better...More HP,more ridged,more better:D
 
Thank you for your input on this, I did not consider a knee mill yet. Definitely something to think about. I will look into floor models for sure.
 
I'm going to offer a counter-point to the floor model drill presses. I have a Craftsman 15" free standing drill press that I have owned for 20+ years. I bought it new and I've taken care of it. It has served me well and has considerable power. When I started making folders, I quickly realized the benefit of having multiple drill presses and I bought two Craftsman 12" benchtop models. I now almost never use the freestanding drill press. The reason is the working height. The Craftsman 12" benchtop models are big, fairly heavy duty drill presses and sitting on a standard Edson metal workbench, they are significantly taller than the floor model. It puts the work at a much more comfortable position for easily viewing small center punch marks or for jeweling liners. Another thing I consider critical is that the spindle taper on my drill presses must have a Morse Taper. All of mine have a 2MT so my chucks and Tapmatic can be interchanged if necessary. You will have a very hard time finding a cheap benchtop model that has a Morse Taper. I agree, a decent mini-mill is also a good option for a knifemaker but, you could have 2-3 decent benchtop drill presses for the cost of what I would consider an adequate mini-mill.

Bob
 
I agree with Bob here. I have a nice large shop fox floor drill press and about all I use it for is fab work around the shop. I use a small 10" Jet bench top drill press for 90% of my knife work.
 
I am approaching my first year making knives and have a little advice FWIW.
I started with a Craftsman press I refurbished and it has served me fairly well. See below.
About 2 months ago I was able to get a HF mini-mill and the run-out on it is better than my craftsman DP.
I was able to get this on CL for 120 bucks with a decent vise and a few odds and ends for tooling.
It does have some upgrade features such as a belt drive system, etc. I haven't done these yet.
Since I got the mini-mill I've used my DP exactly once, and that because I had to drill something too long to fit under the mill.

The older 103.xxxxx craftsman benchtop presses are exactly like the floor models, except for the shorter column and slightly smaller base.
I wouldn't hesitate to get one of these in a bench model instead of the floor model if the quality was the only concern.
The one nice thing about the floor model is it doesn't take up bench space. That to me would be the only major concern on one vs. the other, unless you were drilling something really taaaalllll.
I put all new quality bearings (4) in my Craftsman and it's great. There are some accessories you can hunt down on CL that make it nicer. Slow speed pulley and table lift crank are the main ones. You should be able to pick one of these presses up for 100 bucks or less. It's some work to rebuild but there is a ton of info on how to do that.

If you get the drill press, which will easily get you started, you'll probably eventually start looking into a mill of some sort. I'm in the middle of that process. The HF mini-mill is nice for drilling, and will do some machining, but a bigger mill would suit me better. I will keep my DP though.

No matter what you get, learn to check the run-out before you buy. This is one of the more critical items for knife making.

Craftsman before and after. The top one shows the middle slow speed pulley which I recommend. The bottom one shows the Vari-slo speed attachment with isn't great for metal:


Craftsman150Rough1.jpg


Craftsman150Finished1.jpg


Craftsman benchtop model:

VariSloPress1.jpg
 
If I could only have one drill press, I'd want it to be as big and beefy as I could find. That said, after you buy one drill press, you'll likely find that you can always use another. I'd have a larger one for bigger or more critical jobs, and a couple of smaller bench tops for chamfering holes and whatnot.
 
I have the Jet 15" bench top and it does a great job for me. The specs for the floor mounted 15" Jet are the same as the bench model except for the max distance from the chuck to the work table which is 16" on the bench and 29" on the floor model. 16" is plenty for knives, but if I was building furniture, the additional height might come in handy.
 
Thanks again for all of the excellent advice from everyone. A lot of good things to think on here.
 
I have a small a small Bosch PBD 40 bench drill that I really enjoy. I think it's good enough for my knife making. I really enjoy the electronic speed adjustment. I wouldn't mind a milling machine, but this will have to do for now.

812777_LB_00_FB.EPS_1000.jpg
 
That looks good, but it doesn't look like they sell to the US. Is there a distributor for these stateside, or is there an equivalent model with a digital readout accessible in the US?
 
I picked up a giant Delta table top drill press a while back on CL for $300. It's the largest table model they make and I actually think they don't make it anymore. If you're gonna go for a large drill press I'd recommend a floor model. If you have a super strong bench it wouldn't really matter either way, but if your bench isn't strong enough you'll have to reinforce it for a press like the one in my pic. That's what I had to do.

 
That's a good wooden work table - from Harbor Frieght? Those are GOOD tables for the $120 price (with usual coupon). I've got 5 of those tables!!!! One for a 10X22" lathe, one for a Grizzly G0619 mill (both of which have been re-enforced a good bit). Then there are 3 more in shop. Great tables for the price!
 
I have a 75 year old Craftsman Industrial floor model with the slow speed pulley and a HF mini mill with the belt drive and spring. The Craftsman works great but just collects dust.
 
Ken H> said:
That's a good wooden work table - from Harbor Frieght? Those are GOOD tables for the $120 price (with usual coupon). I've got 5 of those tables!!!! One for a 10X22" lathe, one for a Grizzly G0619 mill (both of which have been re-enforced a good bit). Then there are 3 more in shop. Great tables for the price!
Click to expand...

Yep! To be honest I probably wouldn't buy another one. The only reason I got the one above was because I was feeling to lazy to build another one. I usually just build them from 4x4's, 2x4's, and MDF. I had reinforce the HF a ton to reliably hold the big drill press.

If it wasn't for being able to get the drill press for a couple hundred bucks I probably would have sought out a floor model. IIRC my model was from a military contract and was bought from an auction. The only similar model that's available is a floor model. So again I'll reiterate my advice and say to go for a big powerful floor drill press.
 
I bought a "17 inch" Steel City floor model because it had a 6 inch stroke. Very handy for hidden tang handles.
 
I've got two, actually three drill presses. The one I use for folder work and precision work is my Smithy mill. Other than milling guards it gets used as a drill press. The other two are horrible freight models, a floor mount that's over 20 years old, and a small bench top model. The bench top model gets used for knife making more than the others. The floor model gets used mostly for fabrication and when I need to drill big holes.
 
I have several drill presses but if I had to choose only one I would probably take the floor model because it can do small and large stuff where the benchtop won't be able to do the bigger projects.
 
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