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Bench Drill Recommendations
Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2010 11:36 am
by Bob Ellis
I am thinking of investing in a small bench drill so that I can drill truly vertical drill holes in the range from about 0.4mm to 2.0mm. I don't know much about bench drills, but the Proxxon TBM220 has caught my eye. At £176, it is more than I really want to pay, but if it is a good machine, I shall bite the bullet. Does anyone have any experience of this machine or can anyone recommend a good bench drill that won't knock quite so large a hole in my bank balance?
Re: Bench Drill Recommendations
Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2010 11:45 am
by John Bateson
Bob,
This looks quite heavy duty for model work. A couple of years ago I bought from MachineMart a basic, cheap, bench drill which does all the larger sizes - above 2mm etc - and persuaded line manager and daughters to get me a Dremel 300 series multitool and bench mount for a combination of Christmas and Birthdays which two years ago came to under £100. This has a much higher controllable motor speed and I use it for all those small holes.
John
Re: Bench Drill Recommendations
Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2010 5:33 pm
by nigelcliffe
The smallest "mill" sold by Arc Eurotrade is really a drilling machine. I think its cheaper than the Proxxon, and has a larger range of sizes. It seems like a competant machine if used for drilling.
If really trying to keep costs down, there is the "Fonly" design; its on the 2mm Scale Association "archive" website. It would need slight modification to use current minidrills.
- Nigel
Re: Bench Drill Recommendations
Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2010 6:56 pm
by Tim V
Dare I say it, a Unimat with vertical post will give you a precision drill, small mill and small lathe. Of course they go for serious money, but it's a purchase you'll never regret.
A bench drill from B&Q (etc) is fine for general duties - baseboards but not for modelling.
Re: Bench Drill Recommendations
Posted: Tue Jan 19, 2010 7:42 pm
by Philip Hall
Some years ago I bought a Proxxon TBM220 on Barry Norman's recommendation (actually I bought two of them, one for another friend as we got quite a discount for two) and have been very pleased with it. It takes drills down to 0.3mm and seems very true running. Its only foible - and I call it that since I don't find it to be a fault - is that it rattles a bit if you leave it running for too long. Which you don't, of course, it takes only a moment to drill a hole. Changing speeds is easy - the belt cover only has one large knob. I hardly ever change the speed these days, although I suppose I should. It seems quite expensive now, but then we did buy ours a long time ago, and I remember when I called the dealer some time later (sorry, can't remember who it was now) finding out that the salesman who gave us the big discount shouldn't really have done so...
Philip
Re: Bench Drill Recommendations
Posted: Wed Jan 20, 2010 12:02 pm
by Bob Ellis
Since it is mainly small sized holes I want to drill, I think I shall take Philip (and Barry Norman's recommendation) and buy a Proxxon, especially since Philip says it will drill holes as small as 0.3mm. I would think extreme care would be needed to avoid breaking drills of such a small diameter!
Thanks for the other recommendations. I won't follow up Tim's very good suggestion because I already have a very good lathe (a Sherline). The other bench drills suggested do not seem to drill small enough holes for what I want, so I shall just have to fork out the extra money for the Proxxon. You get what you pay for, I suppose.
Re: Bench Drill Recommendations
Posted: Tue Apr 13, 2010 4:27 pm
by alaninDM
Hi All, My first post!
It occurs to me that instead of worrying too much about mounting smaller diameter drills in an expensive machine it would be easier and cheaper to buy a goodish quality reasonibly priced bench drill and either
- mount sub 1.5mm drills in a collet set (perhaps expensive);
- mount the drill in a pin vice and then mount that in the drill chuck (not so expensive and easy to manipulate ) or;
- use small dia drills with 2.3mm (I think) shanks (which are readily available, easy to manipulate - and find - and strong at the 2.3mm end).
Either of the last two would be better if you need to use several drills for a given job at one time.
Alan