Use a Meddings drill in your workshop
I’ve been around for a few years now as you can see from the colour of my hair in the videos on this site. I’ve worked in a few places over the years and used a great many bench and pillar drills, some of which were great and some of which were virtually useless.
I’m refering to the floor mounted or bench mounted types that are usually belt driven and you can alter the speed of the drill by taking off a guard and moving a “V” belt to various positions to create different gear ratios. This was obviously only done with the machine switched off first.
Most fabrication engineers and hobbyists are familiar with the cheap drills that were made in Taiwan and were usually bright red in colour. I found these just about acceptable for occassional use and for small sized drills but no good if you had to rely on one as the main drill in a busy workshop.
They just didn’t cut it when it came down to it. The drill table was often a cast section with a flimsy clamp around the support post of the machine. This tended to deflect out of the perpendicular when you were drilling something that you needed to push quite hard on. Not ideal then!
The other annoying thing I used to find was that the belt would always slip causing the drill bit to stick when you put any sort of load on it. Very annoying!
As I said, I’ve used all sorts of drill over the years and one name sticks in my head……….. Meddings. They are a long established company who made and who are still making proper drills that are designed to last and that do the job with the right outcome. They are British made as well which is a
bonus in my book.
The machines are obviously more expensive but they cannot be compared with the cheap stuff. The difference is like night and day. If you are looking to buy a new or second hand drill for your workshop then I can thoroughly recommend them as the only brand to consider.
We are building a section of our web site right now that is going to be called “Fabrication Machinery” and guess who are going to feature heavily? We have spoken to them and are in the process of setting up a deal.
We plan to have a wide range of drills from them. Also Steelworkers, bending equipment and bandsaws etc
so keep an eye on us.
That drilling name again….MEDDINGS!