Drill Press: A Tool to Make Holes, and More
In form and function, a drill press is as simple as it gets. Pull a lever to lower a spinning drill bit into a workpiece. Raise the lever and it leaves behind a hole. But here’s the thing: that hole is perfectly vertical, at the perfect depth and perfectly repeatable. Tilt the table and any angle becomes drillable. Adjust the speed and you can drill a host of materials, not just wood.
Replace the drill bit and the machine becomes a drum sander, polisher/buffer or even a lathe. Then there’s the mortiser, the drill press’s first cousin that uses specialized cutters to drill square holes.
They may be simple in concept, but they’re anything but when it comes to woodworking usefulness. Requiring a minimum of bench or floor space, it’s easy to fit a drill press into even the smallest shops. Most woodworkers consider a shop incomplete without one.
What’s Out There
Let’s start with straight drill presses (you can go online to woodworkersjournal.com to find out more about those square-drilling mortisers).
Drill presses are classed by size, measured by a circular “swing.” This is determined by doubling the distance from the chuck to the main support column — in other words, the largest diameter that can be centered under the drill bit. As with other tools, larger machines tend to have more features and capabilities such as a greater available speed range, chucks that handle heftier bits and various high-tech conveniences.
Although they share the same mechanical format, drill presses come in three styles.
Used on a raised work surface, these machines are lighter, more compact and less expensive, but provide the same drilling experience as larger floor machines in a smaller, more portable package. Typical machines in this class range from 8" to 12", although a few go up to 15". For most home workshops, a 10"
