Pillar Drill

[boyse7en]

I have need occasionally of a pillar drill to make brackets, for furniture/shelves that kind of thing.

Screwfix have got this one Titan TTB556DBT for £50 at the moment. I s it likely to be OK for light duties? I'm unlikely to wear the motor out through over use, but I do want it to drill straight!

Anyone got one or similar Titan/chinese one?

[mwstewart]

I ended up buying a second have single phase 'industrial' unit because I could not find an accurate drill for love nor money i.e. from Mahcine Mart, Screwfix etc.

[73mark]

I've got a cheap Chinese one had it for 5 years works great mostly used for rolling over shotgun cases. But I do drill various thickness of metal.

[hidetheelephants]

They do the job, but you get what you pay for; the sliding quill is often wobbly due the holes being oversize and the chucks they come with are made from toffee and should be binned and replaced with either a pukka Jacobs or maybe a czech or polish replacement. The chuck keys are often rubbish too.

[boyse7en]

hidetheelephants said:

They do the job, but you get what you pay for; the sliding quill is often wobbly due the holes being oversize and the chucks they come with are made from toffee and should be binned and replaced with either a pukka Jacobs or maybe a czech or polish replacement. The chuck keys are often rubbish too.

'twas ever thus

But i wouldn't use it enough to justify a big outlay. Have been looking out for a second hand one, but so far no luck near me. They are either enormous free-standing ones from old engineering shops (great quality I'm sure) or too far to collect.

[droopsnoot]

I've got an Aldi one that was about £40 as I recall. It's been fine, I'm mainly using it for drilling plug weld holes in metal repair sections. I can see there's some play in the chuck but in fairness it could easily be me not being very good at sharpening bits properly.

[Super Slo Mo]

I guess it depends how accurate you want it to be. We had a Machine Mart bench mounted one in the office/workshop for a few years, it was great at cutting cloverleaf shaped holes, but couldn't do a properly round hole for love nor money. However, it was cheap, and was fine for bashing out holes in stuff where precision didn't matter.

We've since bought a 3 phase Boxford floor standing unit, ex-school, which is fantastic. We have 3 phase in the office.

At home I have an old single-phase Meddings Drill Tru, bought it cheap in an auction but managed to bend the quill lifting it out of my car. They don't make a replacement but Meddings sent me something that was nearly the right size, a bit of turning on our lathe and it's as good as new.

To answer your question, the cheap modern stuff is adequate, but a world apart from a proper old-school cast iron unit. They're likely to have some wobble in the quill when it's fully extended, but they shouldn't have any when the quill is retracted. You can feel it if you grip the chuck in your hand and try to wobble it. Obviously the power should be off at this point .

[Lugy]

Aldi special here too. Does what it says on the tin, to be fair it's the drills that are more important IMO, fortunately I work the CNC mills so I may have acquired a few over the years, Dormer and Guhring are my favourite.

[DrDeAtH]

A second hand meddings would be better than some Chinese new thing.

[Depthhoar]

I had this dilemma a few years ago and didn't want to take the Far Eastern route so bought one of these, a Record DMS26:

http://www.recordpower.co.uk/product/cast-iron-adj...

I added a metal-gearbox mechanical two speed powerdrill with a decent chuck (and simple on/off, non-speed control trigger switch) to the set up. Works really well and is dead accurate for the sort of jobs I needed it for. The DMS26 is a proper cast iron piece of kit with a lot of adjustability and surprising accuracy. Can even mortice with it. Meaty & definitely built to last.

There's a second-hand one on eBay now (collection only, though):

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RECORD-POWER-DMS-26-ADJU...