DP Table $29.95!

[monte]

I ordered one this morning. Hope they ship it soon.

[Deadhead]

WATCH OUT!!
If this table is the same product as I have seen at House of Tools up here, and they usually are, just branded different (CANWOOD) from China, you will probably have to re-drill the mounting holes on the bottom of the base to get them to fit your DP table. The ones I saw here wouldn't fit any brand of the drills on display, even the Canwood drill.

Still a great deal at that price though. Wish we had Grizzly up here.

I bought the MLCS table when it was on sale for $30 to use on my Big Lots DP. I did have to move the mounting hardware. The threaded rods under the purchased table would not clear the existing table. It wasn't a big deal though. Just a matter of using a forstner bit to counter sink and drilling 6 pilot holes.

You can find out more by searching for the thread(s) on the MLCS DP table.

[bigsteel15]

Probably a different one

I took a look at the Drill Press Table in their 2006 Catalog and they show a picture of the bottom of the Table and the method of attachment.

From what I could determine, attachment should NOT be a problem, since the clamping mechanism does not pass thru the table on the drill press, but rather uses a more universal pair of clamping "bars" that clamp the two tables together from outside the Drill Press Table edge.

That's good news. Either the table is a different one, or the House of Tools guys didn't have the display set up properly...What are the odds.

[louis mason]

whoever receives this first

hi all

i'm tempted to buy this, but we could really use a review from whoever actually recieves their table and mounts it onto the Hitachi drill press.


cheers louis

[geminix]

Received mine yesterday. Seems to be very nice for the bucks.. no complaints here!

Just wanted to mention for those of concerned about mounting issues... there are TWO pairs of mounting points underneath the table for you to choose from, so there's much less chance of needing to relocate the mounts as some had to do with the MLCS model. The mounts are basically lined up with the center of the cutout in the table - one set is 10" apart on center, the other set is 15". Hope this helps!

If anyone wants pics, I can put some up tonight..

[LYU370]

Good to hear that it's a decent table. I just ordered one today, should be shipping out tomorrow. Will be mounting it to my new Hitachi DP.

[sacherjj]

I received mine yesterday. I'm happy with the table for $39 (with shipping). The only issue I have is with the stop block. There were 5 knobs, 2 through threaded and 3 non-trhough. Two non-through knobs hold down the fence fine, the 2 through knobs must be used on the clamps below the DP table. This leaves the non-through knob for the stop block. I bottom out the threads on the back of the knob before I tighten up the stop block to the fence. While this can be fixed with a washer, the block has about 1/8" gap between the bottom of table and the bottom of the block. This allows the block to angle when it is tightened down. This would change the actual setting of the block depending on the thickness of the piece being drilled. I plan on cutting a new block which will be slightly thicker and taller, or add a piece to the bottom and a washer, so it will always be square when locking. Not a big issue, but something worth mentioning.

FWIW - I have the HF big floor drill press 43389 (http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=43389) with the sealed table for fluid metal drilling and the Grizzly table has enough mounting flexibility to work fine with this.

[nicobie]

I just mounted it to my table yesterday. It's worth the money, however it's kinda small for my DP. The way I had to mount it, it doesn't cover the back of the cast DP table.

I didn't use their system of mounting the table either. I attached mine from the bottom. It's stronger, and this way I can use the angled aluminum hold downs as clamps for holding down my work when drilling. I removed the threaded inserts, I'm sure that they will come in handy for something.

My table has a slight bow (1/16"), but it straightens out when you tighten the fence down. I think I'll add a stiffener board to the front/bottom of the table to help keep it straight.

Over all I'd rate it as just OK but still a great value. If I had to do it over again, I would.

[scorrpio]

Ordered one as well. Don't really care if I have to drill extra holes to fasten it to my table. If I have same stop block issues as sacherjj, I'll probably just grind the bolt a bit shorter and glue a shim to block's bottom.

[gmack5]

Thanks for the "Heads up", Rod.
I just placed my order.
I can't build one for that small amount of money.

[LCHIEN]

Got mine today - Quick review

Yes the stop block is a pain. No, the mounting provided works great.
The stop block is fixible, after an aborted attempt where I drilled out the clearance through the top of the knob and enlarged it from the top, then tried to clean out the threads with a 5/16-18 tap only to find it is really 8mm-1.something metric thread, I just hacksawed off 1/4" (6mm) of the T-bolt and that worked fine. I also enlarged the hole to 3/8 since there's no need to be tight and now it sets on the bottom.

The new problems (with My Hitachi DP):
One, its a bit short on depth, I won't be able to use the full swing of the DP.
Two, a biggie problem, the feed handles are right in line with the right hand fence lock knob. The fence is too tall anyway for the feed handles but the knob makes it worse by another inch. With typical bit lengths, bits shorter than those normally provided for 1/4" will be hard pressed to set up at a reasonable (1/2" to 1" clearance from the work piece) height from the table top.
Three, A minor problem, the fence has no dip in the middle to allow drilling small holes (which usually have very short bits) very close to the fence.

[Never2old2start]

I ordered this table and four days later it was delivered (Yesterday). I have it on my new Hitachi DP too. It will serve my needs well. For the price I'm not complaining. I do agree with Loring about the stop block knob and I'm glad he mentioned it. Cutting off a 1/4 of bolt fixed the problem. And drilling out the hole to 3/8" makes it sit square with the table. Everything else I can live with for now. Thanks again Loring.

~ Paul ~

[ksu93]

Mine arrived last week, and the only problem I had was the stop block bolt, which others have described. I thought it was a defective part, so they're sending me a replacement. Actually they had to send a whole new table because they don't have any spare parts for this item yet. It sounds like I'm going to have the same problem with the new one too, so I guess I'll just send it back and shorten the bolt on the stop block. Pretty annoying that they would screw up something so simple, but for that price I guess I don't have much room to complain. The next cheapest option costs about twice as much.

[LCHIEN]

Problem with the Hitachi-Grizz table combo

A biggie problem, the feed handles are right in line with the right hand fence lock knob. The fence is too tall anyway for the feed handles but the knob makes it worse by another inch. With typical bit lengths, bits shorter than those normally provided for 1/4" will be hard pressed to set up at a reasonable (1/2" to 1" clearance from the work piece) height from the table top.

So does anyone else find this to be highly annoying?

Are the feed handles too long or the fence too high and the knob in an unlucky place? (All three I think). What did you do about it?

[LCHIEN]

OK here's the latest mod I had to make.

The fence just would not slide - tighter than heck and when it did move it sure wasn't smooth. Investigation revealed to me that the 8mm T-bolts were rubbing the sides of the T-tracks on the insides and that the thing was basically jammed and got even worse if you were slightly off square witht the tracks since this would reduce the apparent span of the bolts even more.

I decided that the tracks couldn't be moved easily and figured the span between the bolts could be improved several thousanths by opening up the holes. I also decided that the bottoms really needed to be opened I didn't want to to make the top too loosey goosey so I drilled the very tight 8mm (.314") holes up to 21/64th (.328 or 8.33 mm) from the bottom to within about 1/4" from the top. This gave some improvement but it was still not good so I opened it up to 3/8" (.375") which gave the bolt and additional +/-.030 or almost a 1/32nd play. Now it slides fairly freely although not as well as my homemade table which used 1/4" hex bolts in T-track. It also allows much more leeway in the 90 degree anlge between the fence and the Track. Be careful when drilling out the holes, there may not be much wall left between the hole and the T-track routed into the fence. Yes, I know the bolts aren't truly vertical anymore (toed out by .030") but I don't think that's critical.

The fence is only 1" wide, which means when the bolts are not tight it can lean, and if it leans too much when slid it will jam, much as a loose fitting drawer will jam if gotten a little crooked. That would be prevented by a L-shaped fence, but, its not the product.

Given the stop re-engineering problems, the placement of the knobs up high (interfering with the feed levers, and now this, thats several strikes against this fence.

The overall depth of this is more suited to 8-10" DPs. I finally had to put the wider portion (Space between the edge and the sacrifice drill square) towards the back to be able to back the fecen up to the column and still have the drill over the sacrifice piece. That means I have little support for wider pieces when drilling near the edge. Altho I guess I can take the table off and turn it around...

Overall the poor choice of toleranceing and clearance in the way this was made (or more likely, engineered), and the issues just mentioned makes me rank this table as barely so-so for the money despite its very low cost.

I'm almost sure I'm going to re-engineer the fence again before it's all said and done. Lower, L-shaped and with the knobs on the ledge of the "L".