Browse our complete collection of benchtop drill press reviews, floor drill guides, chuck & vise setups, and maintenance tips.
Let's get one thing straight before we go any further: a drill press is not a milling machine. Every year, woodworkers and hobby machinists damage spindle bearings, ruin workpieces, and occasionally fling parts across the shop by ignoring this fun...
A new drill press is a big addition to any shop. It takes up space, it demands its own circuit, and once it is bolted down, you are committed. The RIKON 30-212VS is a 12-inch variable-speed benchtop model that promises to replace the belt-shifting...
Comprehensive guide, reviews, and specifications for drill press equipment.
Removing the chuck from a Craftsman drill press — particularly the Sears-era 113.xxxxxx benchtop models like the 113.213850 — follows the same general drift-key method as any JT33-taper machine, but the Craftsman line has a few specific details wo...
Lose the chuck key for a Buffalo drill press and the machine is dead in the water, you cannot tighten or loosen a bit without it. Buffalo drill press chuck key replacement sounds trivial, but a wrong key is useless: the teeth will not mesh, or the...
Cutting square mortises for joinery by hand is slow, and a drill press can speed it up a lot, either by removing most of the waste with a bit or, with a mortising attachment, cutting genuinely square holes using a hollow chisel and auger. A shop-b...
A 3/4-inch drill press chuck is a large-capacity chuck, and it belongs in a specific context. On a standard benchtop press, a 3/4-inch capacity chuck is unusual because most benchtop spindles are not sized for that opening. Where you encounter it ...
A 1-1/2 HP drill press sits at the powerful end of the shop drill press world, and most people who go looking for one are asking the same real question: do I actually need this much motor, or am I paying for a number I will never use? The honest a...
An 80 percent lower jig turns a fixed reference into precise holes and pockets, and a drill press is the machine many people reach for to run one. It can work, within strict limits, and it can also destroy a bit and endanger you if you ask the pre...
Run a bit too fast and it overheats, burns the wood, and goes dull; run it too slow and it chatters and wanders. The right speed lives in a fairly narrow band that changes with the material and the bit diameter, and no one memorizes all of it. Tha...
Wood is forgiving compared to metal, which is exactly why a drill press for wood is easy to use badly. It will drill almost anything at almost any speed, so people rarely stop to match the speed to the bit or think about tear-out until a hole blow...
Wood forgives a lot, which is why most people never think about drill press speed until a big Forstner bit scorches a nice board or packs its flutes with smoking chips. A wood speed chart prevents that: it tells you how fast to run each bit so it ...
