Learned advice wanted!

Hello all,I am after a bit of advice.In my smallish workshop I have a floor standing pillar drill,I am considering getting rid of it as it takes up too much room, plus it only gets used once in a blue moon.In fact I can't think when I last used it. I seem to be able to use my mill for 98% of my drilling requirements.The question is will I regret getting rid? Your collective knowledge and advice would be welcome.

Regards Pailo.

Will you regret getting rid of it?

probably yes.

there will come a time when you have the mill set up with a rotary table / vise / whatever and you find you have to drill a hole in something.

so, do you disturb your setup, or use the drill?

my two pence

Roy.

Will you regret getting rid of it?

Probably no.

If you can more usefully use the space, then you will notice and enjoy the extra space every day.

If 98% of you drilling is now done on the mill then you can easily make that 100%. If you can't remember when you last used it, then you clearly use it so little that you won't really miss it, except you will 'miss' the obstruction it currently provides. Yes there will be the odd time when you might have used it if it were there, but this seems so rare for you that you will work round it, and not actually regret not having it.

I have moved mine into a shed until I can find someone to give it to as I was in the same position as you.

Keep your drill.If it's in the way put casters on it so you can shove it in a corner. Colin

I think only you can answer the question ultimately, Pailo.

It depends a bit on what size mill you have. If it's a full-size machine it might pretty much replace a pillar drill. Mine is not the smallest you can get but would still be in the mini-mill class and there are things that I can get under the drill that I couldn't fit under the mill, particularly when using a large (and long) drill bit. When those circumstances arise, however occasionally, the pillar drill is a necessity for me.

Also, I can get more raw torque from the drill than the mill which is useful if I want to make, say, a big hole with a holesaw to remove metal prior to boring. Or other "rough" jobs that are beyond the capacity of the mill or would risk stripping the its gears.

On top of that, the pillar drill doesn't really take up that much floor space anyway - or at least, if I got rid of it I can't think of much that would fit in that space. In fact, I have mine next to the bandsaw and wind the drill table down to support long lengths when sawing them.

If you do lose the pilllar drill, what will you do about the 2%?

Having the luxury of a large (5 x 5 M Workshop) plus a 5 x 2.5M woodshop, I have the space for most machines, including a pillar drill, albeit a benchtop type. I find the pillar drill extremely useful and would not get rid, despite having a mini mill and an industrial turret mill.

As has been previously stated, there will always be that time when the mill is set up and you need to quickly drill a hole. Many people have said in the past that pillar drills are inaccurate - well, they are not as accurate as a vertical mill, but then, it all depends on how you position the workpiece. If I need a degree of accuracy, I use an X-Y table under the drill, I have already re-worked the drill spindle to have the absolute minimum runout and use high quality chucks and drill bits.

It's your choice dependent on the space you have, but you may well regret getting rid of the pillar drill.

just my 2 penneth

CB

The other thing with a drill press is you don't just have to use it for drilling. I use drum sanders, wire brushes and polishing mops in mine and certainly would not want the muck that comes off getting onto my mill.

J

Hi Pailo, like Sid says, only you can decide, but consider what work you may or may not do. If you are likely to do some rough and ready drilling for something in the garden or about the house, where precision isn't an issue, then the drill press may be a quicker and easyer option, and if it's a bit of rough metal you won't spoil you mill.

Regards Nick.

P.S. The table on the drill press is always useful for standing your cuppa on.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 06/05/2012 20:33:15

Hi Pailo

I enthusiastically support the majority here - keep the drill ! Even if you never again use it for model engineering - one day you will have a bit of D - I - Y, a quick job for a mate, a repair to some household gizzmo or a thousand and one other unexpected things which just need a hole. ( and that's without all the other uses Jason mentions. ) Do you really want to go drilling holes in bits of timber or rusty metal in your precision mill or, worse still, having to take down some milling job you have taken hours setting up just in order to drill a couple of urgent holes?

Long live the pillar drill !

Regards

Norman

Absolutely! As well as doing things like that, I also have a tapmatic for mine - which if you are going to tap a lot of identical holes, saves loads of time. And it's good for Scotchbrite wheels as well. Ped Drill's not going anywhere anytime soon...

I agree with the majority here Pailo, keep it!

What you use you workshop for does of course have some bearing on the decision, I have recently make a clock and the mill table was most of the time fitted with a dividing head or a spin indexer and I frequently found it necessary to drill some part whilst they were there. Also, even if the table was free, I would have hated to have used my mill drill for drilling the many 1 to 2mm holes that were required.

You may say that you will never make a clock, so would I a year ago.

Even ignoring the clock, I frequently find a hole needs drilling with the mill is kitted out for some other task.

Even removing the cutter chuck and fitting a drill chuck is a bind for me.

Harold

Will you miss it? YES! And sooner rather than later, more likely. I have two drill presses in addition to the RF30 and the X2 mill and all machines get used very regularly.

One piece of advice - do NOT put your cuppa on the drill press table - or for that matter on any other machine table. For the simple fact that you are standing a piece of heat conductive materiel on a HUGE heatsink!!!

Your favourite cuppa will be cold in minutes!!!

Always put your cuppa on a nice warming piece of wood, I know this is not something that is prolific in a ME workshop, but it is essential if you want a hot drink to remain that way

Hi Pailo.

You could also trade down to a smaller unit that can be set up on a bench or a larger cabinet , if you are only drilling reasonably small holes there are the ones that will fit under a bench and can be set up and pressed into service as needed .

IAN

Typical case of one man's meat being another man's poison. I can't drink really hot tea without scalding my mouth, so I regularly get workmates to put my tea on surfaces with high thermal conductivity, just so that I can drink it before forgetting it's there!

Pailo: I'm with the minority on this one; if you are constrained on space and don't use the pillar drill, then move it on. Personally I hardly ever use mine, less than 0.1% of holes. But I'm not constrained by space, and it's rather an odd drill, so I hang on to it. The drill was almost certainly part of WWII 'lend-lease'. One of it's disadvantages is that the spindle has a built in Jacobs taper, so it's difficult to swap to other tools. I have several Tapmatic style units, but I've only ever used them on the vertical mill.

Now as to the important question of where to put ones tea I agree with Steve. I don't like really hot drinks, so I usually put mine on a metal surface to cool down. Mind you, 9 times out of 10 I then forget about it anyway, so I could put it anywhere and it'd still go cold.

Regards,

Andrew

Only one thing is certain, if you give it away you haven't got it any more. If you keep it, and it becomes an unbearable waste of space, you can give it away.

Also, what about the times when you don't want to disturb a setup on the mill and you urgently need a hole in something else? Or you want to drill something REALLY BIG or lots and lots of holes in a hurry (e.g. when rivetting)?

Neil

Thanks for all the comments,I will sleep on it for a bit but I think that I would be able to use my normal electric drill fitted to a stand for that odd occasion where precision is not required.

Thanks again regards Pailo.

Could you make a shorter column and turn it into a bench model?

Hi Pailo,

You don't want or need to get rid of your drill, what you need is to extend (enlarge) your workshop.

Peter.