Shop Tool Brand Advice?

[jaymar_]

Tooling up for (mostly) automotive and fab work and looking for opinions on the following brands for bench grinder, drill press, compressor, bench vise. (I might add more tools.) Thanks for any pointers!

Bench Grinder / Drill Press:

Baileigh Industrial
Palmgren
Jet
Woodward
PowerMatic...

Compressor:

EMAX
Campbell Hausfeld
Jenny Electric

Bench Vise:

Palmgren
Baileigh
Wilton
Woodward
Titan Tools

​

 

[neophyte]

Tooling up for (mostly) automotive and fab work and looking for opinions on the following brands for bench grinder, drill press, compressor, bench vise. (I might add more tools.) Thanks for any pointers!

Bench Grinder / Drill Press:

Baileigh Industrial
Palmgren
Jet
Woodward
PowerMatic...

Compressor:

EMAX
Campbell Hausfeld
Jenny Electric

Bench Vise:

Palmgren
Baileigh
Wilton
Woodward
Titan Tools

​

For a shop vise, you might want to consider a forged steel Ridgid vise, or one of the similar gorged steel vises from Capri or Yost.
Alternatively, if you are looking for US made, Milwaukee Morgan for new on the higher end to compete with Wilton, or the Harbor Freight Doyle vises on the very good but affordable lower end.

 

[Roert42]

See what you can get from local suppliers. Makes it easier when you have an issue to get warranty parts. Compressors are a big one, if they will only send the parts after one of their suppliers techs looks at it, but they have to drive a hour or two each way, the warranty is close to useless.

Napa sells some decent shop equipment, some of it branded Carlyle/ some not. They run some decent deal too. Right now they are doing 20% if you buy at least three things.


Second on the Milwaukee Morgan Vise, have one, they're nice.


It's more about the quality of the tool the the name.
Even most high end manufactures have a cheap Chinese version. The $1500 Baileigh industrial drill press is almost identical to the $300 HF jobber. The actual industrial quality drill presses they sell are going to start in the $5000 range.

 

[gfd_703]

Skip the grinder and get a BurrKing belt grinder, no comparison in the speed they will remove material.

 

[Komet]

A lot of brands sell the same product painted a different color. You should go into greater depth about what your needs are for each device and then figure out which brands support what you're looking for at your price point.

 

[u2slow]

I'm not a brand guy. I usually shoot for high value (bigger tool at a sale/discount price). Domestic (Canadian) tools are too obscure to pursue, so I don't care where they're made.

Bench grinder is an 8" MasterCraft.

Drill press is a 20" Delta (left for scrap) that I fixed up and bought a 3/4" chuck for.

Compressor is a 10cfm Speedaire. (240v portable)

Vise is a 6" MasterCraft.

 

[dnschmidt]

I agree with the BurrKing Belt Grinder. There are only two things that a regular grinder does better than a belt grinder and one of them is sharpen drills and the other is create tool steel lathe bits. The reason for this is that the curvature of the wheel enables you to relief the cutting edge which is crucial. If you don't intend to do either of these a conventional grinder is unnecessary if you have the BurrKing.

 

[seber]

I have a belt grinder (finally) and I agree it does stock removal far better and faster than a bench grinder. But I still have and use two bench grinders. Nothing can replace a flap wheel or a wire brush on a grinder. I also keep a highly frangible wheel on one for sharpening and on the other side a course gray wheel. Although I may find I don't need that. In which case I will mount my seldom used deburring wheel.

 

[tarbellb]

Bailiegh everything is PURE HOT GARBAGE

The drill press market is a notoriously tough field now, looks like you want metal specific.... Best bet is Grizzly, then honestly used industrial or big bucks.

Bench grinder, same as above, used or just beat the snot out of something cheap, add a belt grinder attachment for real results.

Emax compressors is a no brainier

Vise, I'm keen on the Yost offerings if buying new, also any of the welded 6" (ADI Yost, Ridgid F60, Heuer) models all more then up to snuff.

Fun times, grab your gear and get going!

 

[F-22]

Sadly, they seem to be terribly overpriced in the US, but I love my Heuer vise. Made in Germany, really smart design. Mine is old but has no play since you can adjust it out. I took it all apart, the spindle is also cleverly designed (like, I notice minor details they thought about when designing it, like a ring circlip that does not weaken the spindle like the pins in cheap vises do).

And it's all forged, you can hammer on it and use it as an anvil, it won't care.