Browse our complete collection of benchtop drill press reviews, floor drill guides, chuck & vise setups, and maintenance tips.
The Craftsman 9-inch drill press is one of those Sears machines that shows up constantly on used listings and in inherited garages, sitting in that odd spot between the common 8-inch benchtop presses and the larger 10- and 12-inch machines. Owners...
Maybe you want a keyless chuck so you stop hunting for the key, or you picked up a better chuck and want it on your good machine. Either way, changing the chuck on a JET drill press is less about muscle and more about matching two tapers correctly...
You walk into Harbor Freight and the orange signs promise power tools at prices that make you pause. The drill press section is no exception. A ten-inch benchtop press with a laser guide and five speeds for less than the cost of a good router? It ...
The first time a workpiece spins out of an unclamped vise, you learn the lesson permanently: the vise itself is only half the safety story. The other half is how it is attached to the table. A vise that sits loose is a projectile waiting for a rea...
Ellis drill presses are a different animal from the import machines most people search parts for. Ellis Manufacturing is a long-running American maker of industrial drill presses and metal-cutting equipment, and its machines, models like the 9000,...
The first time I ran a large Forstner bit in a handheld drill, it grabbed, twisted my wrist, and left a hole that looked like a beaver had been at it. The same bit in a drill press, a week later, cut a flat-bottomed hole so clean it looked machine...
The Craftsman Laser Trac drill press (model No. 229250) is a 15-inch, 2/3 HP floor press that Sears sold with one distinguishing feature: a built-in laser crosshair system meant to show you exactly where the bit will land before you drill. It work...
A cross feed table promises what every drill press owner secretly wants: turn a handwheel and slide the work sideways under the bit, so it feels like you could machine a slot or true up an edge. Before you try, read this, because it is exactly whe...
Mounting a vise looks like a two-bolt job, and it can be, right up until you skip the checks that decide whether the holes land where you meant them to. Where the vise sits, which way the jaws face, and whether the table can even take a bolt all m...
Someone tells you their drill press "tops out at 3,100 RPM" and someone else brags about "20,000 RPM," and you start to wonder if you have been buying the wrong machine. You probably have not. Speed on a drill press is a tool you match to a job, n...
A drill press is only as accurate as its table is square, and a table that leans even a degree turns every hole into a slanted one. Learning how to align a drill press table is the single highest-value tune-up you can do, and it takes one measurin...
The belt position on a drill press is what sets your speed, and moving it to the right pulley steps is the single change that turns a bit-burning, wandering setup into clean, accurate holes. Knowing how to change the belt position on a drill press...
