Drill Press Basics

Whether you're new to the tool or just need a refresher course, WOOD magazine's Craig Ruegsegger explains the basic operation of the drill press, including the proper techniques for using this tool, and the terminology associated with it.

This is the drill press. Now, the drill press is really a pretty simple machine. You use it for drilling holes as you might suspect. Let's talk about the mechanics of the drill press first and then we'll show you a little bit of what it can do. 

At the back you've got a motor that is suspended from the back of the assembly. And that's attached to a series of pulleys and the pulleys are connected by a belt. By changing the arrangement of the belt on the pulleys, you can change the speed of the drill bit. This one has, as most do, a nice handy chart inside to show you which arrangement of belt and pulleys gives you what speed. This one goes from about 340 RPM up to 2,800 RPM. 

Down here is the chuck. This should look familiar if you've ever seen a handheld drill. This is the part that holds the bit. Like some of the handheld drills, this one opens with a key. Insert the drill bit, snug it up, and it's ready to go. Some models also offer keyless chucks where you can just tighten them with the twist of your hands. 

This assembly raises and lowers the drill bit. This whole assembly is called the quill. That travel lets you drive a bit straight down into your work. On the left side here, there's a column. And this one has a screw-type stop on it. You dial these down to a specific depth. Now the quill travel is limited, so you can drill a hole of a limited depth. That's called a counterbore. So if you don't want to drill all the way through a piece, this stops the bit before it gets through. 

This particular model is a floor-standing drill press. It's pretty obvious where that name comes from. It sits on the floor. The other type that is available is a benchtop drill press. It would typically have a foot at about this level. And you would set that on top of a bench for work. A benchtop drill press might be the best place for you to get into a drill press if you're doing woodworking. The floor-standing model offers a whole lot more capacity to get the table down, so you can get a larger workpiece between the table and the bit. But for most of the jobs, you're going to do in woodworking, a benchtop drill press will cover you. And they're a little less expensive. 

On most drill presses, you'll see a geared assembly like this. Spin the handle and you can set the table at whatever height you want. Then tighten the handle to lock it in place. Tables also pivot so you can just move it out of the way if needed. And you can tilt it. I'm loosening a bolt down here. You can then pivot the table. A gauge here shows how much the tilt is. There's one final control down here. Pinches the table in place so you can rotate it if that's needed. 

Now, a table does an awful lot, but, frankly, this is one of the shortcomings of the drill press because this works fine for metalworking which is where the drill press originated. But if you want to improve your drill press for woodworking, one of the best things you can do is add a table. This is one that was featured in WOOD Magazine. A drill-press table offers several advantages. Number one-- you've got this much larger worksurface so that you can more easily support larger workpieces like you would have when you're building a cabinet or something. I think one of the best features is that you have the opportunity to add this fence that you can clamp in position and move workpieces along. Now, you can drill holes that are consistently spaced from the edge of a workpiece. And drill here, here, and here. Also, it gives you a better margin of safety as you're working. If the bit should catch in a piece, it's not going to spin because it's pressed up against the fence. This one also offers extendable wings. You can clamp stopblocks here so you can move a piece out and always drill holes in the same place on multiple workpieces. 

Using a drill press is really very simple. Say this is the side of a cabinet and I've got shelf pins measured out at specific distances. I'm going to position these under the drill press. Oops, that looks like a bit of a problem. The handle hits the fence. But the handles are designed to unscrew for that very reason. Just set that one aside. And now I have the travel needed. So I'm on the first mark. Position the fence and lock it down. Now, I can start drilling holes. Since I don't want these holes to go all the way through, use the stop over here to make them just ¹/₄ inch deep. 

I'm going to show you how deep that's going to go. That's how deep the drill bit will be when it hits a stop. So all my holes will be of consistent depth. You can see how I can keep moving down the line and drilling holes. 

Let's say I do want to drill through holes here. I'll just take the stop up so it's out of play. I don't want to drill through and drill into the table. So take a piece of scrap, put it underneath there. Now, when I drill through, I'm drilling into the scrap and not the table. The other thing that backer board does for you, is it gives you a nice clean back on the holes. 

Let me show you another neat trick that your drill press can do. This is a drum sander. You can mount it in place of a drill bit and turn your drill press into a drum sander for sanding curves. If I've got a project where I have a cutout like this, you can see where the pencil line is. I've rough-cut that on the scroll saw. Then I need to sand up to this line. Doing that by hand would be very tedious and probably not exact. With a drum sander in the drill press, you can turn this on.

OK. I'm getting very close to my layout lines there. I like to be able to freehand this so I can use the full surface of the sanding drum like this. But once I get close to the line, I want to make sure the edge is 90 degrees to this face. I can accomplish that by clamping a scrap just in front of the sanding drum here. Slip the workpiece in and raise the table so it just catches the drum. Now, I can finish up resting this on the piece here. I'll end up with a surface that is 90 degrees to the face. I only want to do this for the end because one drawback is I'm using just a portion of the sanding drum here. But this will give me a nice, square surface. 

One of the strengths of the drill press is you can use bits you wouldn't want to use in a handheld drill. This is a wing cutter. It spins around here and it cuts perfect circles. You can cut rather sizable circles by adjusting this arm in and out. In a case like this, I've got a piece where I can't use the fence. The piece extends too far back, so I can't use the fence to brace it against. I want to make sure this piece stays put. And with this thing spinning around, I really don't want my hands anywhere near this. So I need to clamp the piece in place. I've got a backer board between my table and the workpiece. So when the bit pokes through it won't tear up the drill press table. Clamp the workpiece in place. Make sure that the table's locked in place. And we're ready to go. 

A wing cutter should run at very slow speeds. So there we have a perfectly circular opening. And if perhaps you're making wheels for a toy project, you've also got perfectly circular cutouts. 

There is another type of large bit that drill presses handle quite easily. They also cut circles. They are not as adjustable as the wing cutters. In fact, they're not adjustable at all. They are fixed diameters. These are called hole saws. Take a look at the teeth on that and you can see why they're called hole saws. It's just like a series of saw teeth around the perimeter with a drill bit in the middle to guide it. Those aggressive teeth on a hole saw can grab hold of the piece and spin it around if it's not clamped down. So clamp your workpiece securely in place so it doesn't come spinning back on you. This is also a bit you run at slow speed. 

When you compare a drill press to the alternative, which is probably a handheld drill, there really is no comparison. With the drill press, you get so much more power, you get accuracy, and you get repeatability. It really deserves a place in your woodworking shop.