Rockwell Delta 11-280 32" Radial Drill Press

Manufactured: 1973 (est.) / Acquired 09-06-2011.  It’s not going to be the prettiest tool in the shop, but I can’t wait to get this one up and running.  After scouring Craigslist for months looking for a good, cheap floor model drill press only to show up "one caller too late" to the guys who bought the ones I wanted, I hit upon the ad for this one at 8:30 in the morning before heading into the office. 

The photo in the ad only showed an extreme closeup of the Rockwell logo on the front pulley guard and the description was equally vague, listing it as a "old heavy drill press."  Given that the asking price was $25, I figured that it was a least worth a look, especially since the older Delta Rockwell power tools have a reputation as being quality goods. 

When I first laid eyes on this thing, I had my doubts, but was taken aback to see a radial arm drill press.  The motor sounded solid and despite a bit of a noise from the spindle due to years of accumulated rust, I knew that radial presses were not all that common and generally commanded a fairly high price  at retail.  I gauged that a Rockwell 1/3 H.P. motor had to be worth at least $25, so some money changed hands, I loaded my first stationery power tool into the wife's SUV and headed off to work. 

The press has been torn down and is now being cleaned and reconditioned.  It will likely need a bit of touch up paint and a new drive belt, but other than that, the only major issue was with the original chuck which had rusted solid and was in need of replacement.  As luck had it, a couple of visits to eBay netted me a NOS Jacobs chuck in the original box for less than the twenty-year old retail price shown on the sales tag.  The motor was cleaned and serviced locally and the cut off ground plug was replaced so that I won't get juiced the first time I'm standing in a damp garage with my hand on the throw rod.

From what I've gathered from other sites, folks either love these things or hate them. The two chief complaints seem to be that the spindle speeds are too fast for metals and that there is a certain amount of flex in the radial arm that makes it difficult to bore holes to a consistent depth.  Given that I rarely work with metal and that the depth issue can be easily addressed with the addition of a set of stop collars, neither of these concerns trouble me.  For me, the negatives are far outweighed by this machine's ability to drill to the center of a 32" circle and the fact that the the drill head can be rotated 90° in either direction allowing for boring at any angle, including dead-on horizontal.

That said, this press will likely meet every need I'll have for it in the shop and will likely outlast me.