a visit to the dark side

[oldwino]

I've been able to maintain my USA status until damn near 2011. Have a project in which a bench top drill press will be handy. A friend has a HF inside track club membership and showed me a coupon for a 12 speed bench top drill press for a hundred bucks. I took the plunge!

As I don't own any metric tools I also bought a HF 3/8" socket set to assemble my new toy. Started assembly and discovered that bolt holes were F***ed Up and needing to be re-tapped. Trip to Ace for metric taps to clean up holes. Next step I discovered I didn't have any metric hex keys...trip to Ace for metric hex keys...A couple of bolts were so crappy it took another trip to ACE. Spent a couple of hours with the Dremel cleaning up castings. I haven't got so far as tuning this turd yet, but I suspect it won't be easy. After all of this, sure hope this thing works

 

[spongerich]

My advise is to return it ASAP and find a nice older USA made drill press on CL. $100 will get you a nice older Delta, Walker-Turner or other heavy duty unit that will be running long after your HF unit is rusting away in the landfill. I have my share of asian tools, but drill presses aren't their sweet spot by a long shot.

If you want to save a few bucks, you can probably pick up a good used Craftsman drill press for $50 and while it's not quite as nice as the "industrial" brands, the older ones are still very good tools.

 

[oldwino]

spongerich
I don't disagree about finding a "real tool"...like I said in my original post I did not even have any metric tools to set this thing up. The facts are...I have checked CL, ebay, etc on almost a daily basis for quite some time now and have come up dry (ebay has sometimes had some decent deals, but by the time you add shipping, not a good deal. CL in this area *****! If I could find a used crapsman for $100 I'd jump on it, but not available here.

I guess the only plus is that I now have a few metric taps and dies, sockets, etc.and am ready for the 20th century

 

[Wanna Ride]

Spent a couple of hours with the Dremel cleaning up castings.

How does this effect the way it drills holes?

 

[oldwino]

How does this effect the way it drills holes?

No effect on drilling holes, but not into flesh eating sharp edges where they shouldn't be and besides it just looked like ****. Started tuning and aligning last night and it's pretty close. Motor sounds good, decent power and should work ok