Comments & Experiences With Tabletop Hobby Drill Press?

What about a drill guide? Basicly a steel block with perpendicular holes for different drill sizes. Clamp to what you need drilled and use hand drill. They have tap guides as well. This will get you a straight holes but if it is hole to hole distance then it is a different story.

You will generally not expect to get a truly round and precisely sized hole produced by a drill bit alone. That's what reamers are for. However, for general purpose small hole drilling, a table top hobby type drill press will do fine. -Mark.

Back in the early 70's I had a Craftsman table top drill press that looked a lot like the WEN that Mr Wizard posted. Maybe was a bit taller. Drilled a lot of holes in brass and aluminum with no issues. Tapped a lot of those holes, but we never were looking for .001 tolerances. Not that it might not have been that accurate, but we never checked. It did have problems with steel more than about 3/4" thick. Or drilling big holes with Forstner bits. Think motor was 1/8 or 1/4 HP only.

I do a LOT of drilling small to medium (2”) holes in aluminum aircraft panels.

I use a 1/2” benchtop drill press from the Canadian equivalent of HF. I bought it at a ridiculously low price, so low if I didn’t like it figured I could flip it CraigsList for a tidy profit. That was in around 2001, I still have it, and still use it very regularly.

The only problem with these little cheapy drill presses is they aren’t robust enough to take the required down force to drill anything capable of fighting back.

I did however upgrade the chuck a few years back when a friend upgrade his and I took his ‘hand me down’ original chuck.

people do precision work with hobby tools all the time

lightweight precision, does not have to mean 'industrial' sized machine shop tooling

look at the table top mini-mills used by some of the hobby machinists

any holes that can be hand drilled with a portable drill (and work)
can certainly be drilled by a table top press



wen 5 speed $74

google search

Don't think a no 3 drill will fit a Bridgeport. Sort of like using a 966 Caterpillar backhoe to bed a rose. Well, back to using a hand-drill...

Sorry about being obtuse but... No 'tabletop' drill press (all imported anyway) will have spindle bearings capable of maintaining a zero runout drilled hole. Besides, even the best twist drills all runout to a degree anyway.

To get the least amount of radial runout (and a straight drilled hole) you need precision loaded bearings so a Bridgeport or a quality drill press like a Calusing is in order and neither will fit on a tabletop.

No buddy with a small machine shop?

For minimal light use I would get the lowest price press at Harbor Freight. Probably $60 or $80. I also saw a dremel tool press as an accessory if you have a dremel tool.

I drilled and tapped two 3/16 bolt holes to repair some coin laundry machines today. All freehand and works fine for me. Good enough and done.

Save up your money and buy a Bridgeport.