Drill Press

You know, I'm having trouble here

I need to get this hole into this piece of wood, but it's got to be perfectly straight

And the trouble with a regular hand drill is that you can wobble all over the place

and you might not get it right. Well, you know what? There's a neat tool that'll allow you to do it

It's the drill press, the tool for every man, and women too

The most important part to understand about a drill press is that the drill and the motor itself are stationary

meaning that the only thing that the drill can do is spin around and it can go straight up and down

And that's exactly what we're looking for. There's no wobble, there's no chance that the drill will tilt one way or the other

One of the other nice things about a drill press is that they also operate at different speeds

For example, all you have to do is lift up the top of a typical drill press like this

and there's pulleys up here with belts. and by adjusting the belts on the different pulleys it can go from a very slow speed to a very fast speed The work table that you actually place your material on can be adjusted to different heights

and that's important. As you can see, it's at a good height now to drill the 2x4 if I want to go through inch and a half

But what happens if I want to drill through the long part of the 2x4

Not a problem. Simply crank the table down, insert the safety lock key so that you can turn the drill on

Activate the switch, and you'll see that the drill's ready to go. and rotate the handle slowly so it drills down into the wood

It's as simple as that. Currently the drill press handle is located on the right side of the tool

but it can be located at the left side here if you're a Southpaw

Another handy feature of this drill press, in case your drill sergeant wants you to do some night maneuvers and you need a little extra light

it's got one. I'm Tim Carter, Ask the Builder. If you want to discover more home improvement tips, go to Ask the Builder

Go to askthebuilder.com