I need a drill press soon, I was thinking maybe I should just grab a used mill and drill? my main use case for the mill portion is just to more precisely locate holes when I'm making brackets, but I might actually try to mill some stuff too. I do have access to a real mill at work, should I just save the cash and get a normal drill press. Any brands to target or avoid?
ShawnG
MegaDork
9/6/24 12:42 p.m.
I've got an RF30 mill-drill and I'm upgrading to a Bridgeport this afternoon.
The RF30 is probably the cheapest version of the round-column mill-drills but it's far more rigid than any drill press you will buy without spending significant amounts of money.
I'd go for the mill-drill and treat it as a very capable drill press rather than a light-duty milling machine.
Most drill presses on the market today are junk. I have a 50 year old Rockwell in my woodshop because it was the same price as a new junk machine and works much better.
A bench top square column mill could be a good compromise. Will enable real milling, although a smaller working envelope and shallower passes that a Bridgeport. But it'll be much easier to move, and a consume bit smaller floorspace
If you're looking new, Precision Mathews has great reviews.
I started out with a drill press. Bought an X-Y table for it. It was OK but they aren't worth the space when a mill drill takes up about the same amount of room.
I moved up to a Jet JMD-15. It's a really good compromise. I have done all kinds of drilling and milling with it. The column is fairly stiff. Its main limiting factor is not being able to raise the column without losing your center. I still have it even though I bought a Bridgeport. I paid about $700 for it locally. It uses standard R8 tooling. If you are short on room I can recommend it.
If you have the space, old Bridgeports are getting pretty cheap. I paid $1500 for mine. Yes, it's 60 years old and looks it, but it will still do any mill work I need to do.
Edit to say, I tried a mini-mill in the middle. It was too small to do anything of any size. I ended up buying the Jet and trading the mini to Woody for a Segway.