After getting noticing my cheap bench top drill press is not what it used to be, I've started looking at options for a decent pillar drill.
My old machine was bottom of the range Chinese made for £50 in 2007, but actually hasn't been that bad. I've given it some abuse and early on even managed to get acceptable results thicknessing fretboards accurately with the safe-t-planer. It's always taken too much time though to get the table at the right height (no rack mechanism) and flat (it's not naturally flat front to back at 90 degrees to the chuck). The throat will need to be deeper for some jobs in future though, the drilling gets less square the more the chuck is depressed and I think both the chuck and the bearings are starting to go in it.
Looking at options though I'm starting to think the market's idea of a decent 'prosumer' or 'trade' drill at under £1000 is just a bit of a lie? Taking Axminster for example, they have some really nice 'craft/hobby' drill at around £3-400 with really useful features, but the reviewers all say don't expect that much accuracy, tables that are level or chucks free from excessive run out. Fair enough, for the price I think they still seem reasonable for the average hobbyist but not really what I'd want for luthiery. I have more money to spend these days and know the cost of buying something rubbish.
Even the 'trade' rated models get awful reviews from people using them for fine woodworking, and all seem to share the same roughly finished Chinese castings. Some of the designs for these are really quite poor, like depth stop adjusters you can't access, or missing features that you would have got at the 'craft' £3-400 price range. For these drills we are talking £600 to almost £1000, and people are sending them back because of excessive run out, sub optimal designs or rough running motors. The argument seems to be "woodworking" pillar drills don't need to drill holes accurately and you need an 'engineering' drill to be able to drill 6 holes in a straight line without a jig.
The only alternative seems to be an 'engineering' drill costing around £1400 (that's about $2400 in Canada), which looks perfect and a tool for life. Guaranteed to be well machined, everything square, no runout and a depth stop, table lift and spindle lock that all work. I'm all for not buying tools twice because even my £50 drill is going to be hard to let go of, but is this really the only option for buying something new that gives good accuracy? It just seems bizarre that all these products in lower price brackets would be such poor offerings, all you'd really want is some of the specs on the craft machines with a bit more accuracy rather than a heavy duty motor.
Many people seem to suggest buying an old British (Meddings, Startrite etc) drill and refurbishing it, but that looks like quite masochistic from where I'm standing. The ones I've seen are all many miles away, require you to pick them up yourself with a van and come with three phase motors and limited features. I haven't come across any yet that look like a worthy project within reach. I'm open to this but just surprised at how poor the choice seems to be in the market for quality, like there's this big gulf between cheap and professional with nothing worth having in between. For £1400 I'm even half considering buying a craft pillar drill and a mini milling machine to start off the holes when accuracy is needed, such is the budget that would afford you when looking at other types of machinery.
Has this been people's experience? Just wondering what pillar drills people are using to build guitars, and if you've gone for a cheaper model did you find one accurate enough to live with? Am I being too picky?
The reason I'm concerned about accuracy is from past experience. A 6 screw strat tremelo won't hold tune if the screw holes aren't perpendicular, holes you can see from both sides like tuning pegs need to line up... etc
My old machine was bottom of the range Chinese made for £50 in 2007, but actually hasn't been that bad. I've given it some abuse and early on even managed to get acceptable results thicknessing fretboards accurately with the safe-t-planer. It's always taken too much time though to get the table at the right height (no rack mechanism) and flat (it's not naturally flat front to back at 90 degrees to the chuck). The throat will need to be deeper for some jobs in future though, the drilling gets less square the more the chuck is depressed and I think both the chuck and the bearings are starting to go in it.
Looking at options though I'm starting to think the market's idea of a decent 'prosumer' or 'trade' drill at under £1000 is just a bit of a lie? Taking Axminster for example, they have some really nice 'craft/hobby' drill at around £3-400 with really useful features, but the reviewers all say don't expect that much accuracy, tables that are level or chucks free from excessive run out. Fair enough, for the price I think they still seem reasonable for the average hobbyist but not really what I'd want for luthiery. I have more money to spend these days and know the cost of buying something rubbish.
Even the 'trade' rated models get awful reviews from people using them for fine woodworking, and all seem to share the same roughly finished Chinese castings. Some of the designs for these are really quite poor, like depth stop adjusters you can't access, or missing features that you would have got at the 'craft' £3-400 price range. For these drills we are talking £600 to almost £1000, and people are sending them back because of excessive run out, sub optimal designs or rough running motors. The argument seems to be "woodworking" pillar drills don't need to drill holes accurately and you need an 'engineering' drill to be able to drill 6 holes in a straight line without a jig.
The only alternative seems to be an 'engineering' drill costing around £1400 (that's about $2400 in Canada), which looks perfect and a tool for life. Guaranteed to be well machined, everything square, no runout and a depth stop, table lift and spindle lock that all work. I'm all for not buying tools twice because even my £50 drill is going to be hard to let go of, but is this really the only option for buying something new that gives good accuracy? It just seems bizarre that all these products in lower price brackets would be such poor offerings, all you'd really want is some of the specs on the craft machines with a bit more accuracy rather than a heavy duty motor.
Many people seem to suggest buying an old British (Meddings, Startrite etc) drill and refurbishing it, but that looks like quite masochistic from where I'm standing. The ones I've seen are all many miles away, require you to pick them up yourself with a van and come with three phase motors and limited features. I haven't come across any yet that look like a worthy project within reach. I'm open to this but just surprised at how poor the choice seems to be in the market for quality, like there's this big gulf between cheap and professional with nothing worth having in between. For £1400 I'm even half considering buying a craft pillar drill and a mini milling machine to start off the holes when accuracy is needed, such is the budget that would afford you when looking at other types of machinery.
Has this been people's experience? Just wondering what pillar drills people are using to build guitars, and if you've gone for a cheaper model did you find one accurate enough to live with? Am I being too picky?
The reason I'm concerned about accuracy is from past experience. A 6 screw strat tremelo won't hold tune if the screw holes aren't perpendicular, holes you can see from both sides like tuning pegs need to line up... etc
) Can you go to a store where they have a model setup and test cut or at least take a square and some tools to check critical for issues?
