Do all drill presses sold new today come out of the same Chinese factory? They are all the same and they all have horrible user feedback on Amazon and other review sites.
How best do I acquire a good American-made drill press without spending much? There are some ancient Clausings and Buffalos on Craigslist but they all cost a fortune.
>>944332
estate sales or auctions
went to one last week, 2 drill presses went for $60 for some big ass craftsman made in the usa one and $20 for a fat tabletop one made in taiwan. $30 tombstone lincoln welders and $5 hand power tools
>>944332
The ~100$ 10 inch chinese drill presses arent horrible if you replace the chuck with a decent one.
I ended up with the Skil badged one.
I looked for 5 months locally and nothing but 70s import presses came up.
If you can find something locally, get it, but the chinese ones are accurate enough for whatever youd use a tabletop drill press.
>>944336
The HF ones drill a 9/16ths hole with a 1/2 bit. OK maybe that's a bit much, but wobble can earn you up to 2mm on these shitty things.
>>944424
The spindle runout isnt that bad, most is introduced from the poor chucks.
We are talking about a cheap benchtop drill press afterall.
And I dont really like the fit and finish of the harbor freight ones.
The Porter cable drill presses are excellent
>>944332
Mine is that exact same one "Tool Shop", the Menards store brand. The motor is so weak it takes forever to drill through mild steel. Do not buy!
The chuck seems ok, though.
>>944332
>There are some ancient Clausings and Buffalos on Craigslist but they all cost a fortune
I posted about it here when asking which DP to get. Pic related. I paid $50 for the Buffalo Forge. Plus $70 in parts to fix it. Traded the motor out because it was a horizontal mount only and those fuckwits mounted it vertically. I now use it in my wood lathe. All that plus a quart of blank paint, some new bearings and a lot of elbow grease and its probably worth $250-$300 now.
>>944335
This. I've since acquired an old Craftsman bench top model for the princely sum of $45. Its shop ready though and needed no worth other than a cleaning.
>>944336
>>944424
>>944427
I have a fuckton of chucks. Supreme, Jacobs, Craftsman (lord knows who the OEM is), you name it. Good chucks are worth their weight in gold. Whenever I see a good one selling for cheap I buy it. Putting a good chuck in a shit DP can really improve the quality. You'll still have to deal with shit power, flexing and limited capacity but at least your holes will be closer to round. For woodworking that can be plenty.
I have a 1960s vintage Jacobs 3326 on my cheap Horror Fright drill press. With the stock chuck, runout at the spindle was a fraction of thou but at the end of dowel pin it was closer 1/100. The ancient Jacobs chuck was far better made.
>>944332
yes. the cause for the move to manufacture in china was brought about by the solid american and german built tools that never break down. if someone wants something that just works forever, they just pick up a used one. if they really want a new one, not that you actually need one, the desire for a new tool is skewed by the cheap chinese shit that breaks down after three years, you buy a chinese one.
>>944332
>Do all drill presses sold new today come out of the same Chinese factory?
the consumer-grade ones, yea. pretty much
>How best do I acquire a good American-made drill press without spending much?
you don't. with machine tools, a safe assumption is that a first-world-quality item will cost around 5 to 10 times what the cheap China-made one does.
(as far as the USA goes) the better China/Taiwan brands are Jet. nearly (but not quite) as good is Grizzly.
the worst ones are the cheapest ones--HF, northern tool, ect.
once you decide what you want, shop around for comparable items and let the prices be your guide.
>There are some ancient Clausings and Buffalos on Craigslist but they all cost a fortune.
those aren't necessarily good, just ancient.
old equipment can be worn and damaged, even if it is high quality... and even if you are willing to bother, [new] replacement parts may not be available.
>>944518
>I have a 1960s vintage Jacobs 3326 on my cheap Horror Fright drill press. .... The ancient Jacobs chuck was far better made.
The main problem I've seen with cheapo China drill chucks (and lathe chucks) is that they don't machine the mating threads to finish them. they just use a fine sand for the sand-casting, and leave it at that. And then they case-harden them, so there's no easy way to help that yourself
>>944577
>first-world-quality item
While I don't mean to stir shit here some of the shittiest products, including tools, I have ever come across have been imported from America and were twice the price of a significantly better ching chong wing tong brand item.
>>944591
I'm not about to claim that some of what we make isn't shit, but
Most of the stuff that's properly, actually entirely Made In America is top quality.
Assembled in America (or any other lesser labeling) is usually the cheapest of the Chinese shit that someone imported to here, put two screws in, then resells based off of muh American Pride.
>>944591
>While I don't mean to stir shit here some of the shittiest products, including tools, I have ever come across have been imported from America and were twice the price of a significantly better ching chong wing tong brand item.
I don't doubt it. ...what country you in?
In the last ~20 or so years US politicians have been pushing tax breaks to "bring jobs back to America". So now you have US companies doing some manufacturing of the things mostly made in China.
The items only cost a bit more or the same as the Chinese ones, but the difference is in the wages paid to the workers: when those jobs left the US they paid $50+ an hour w/lots of benefits. The returning manufacturing jobs in the US tend to pay more like $15 an hour with little or no benefits.
I guess it would be better to use the term "industrial quality" rather than "retail quality".
