I needed to drill a shitload of holes into porcelain tile so...first thing I did was to buy a Harbor Freight floor-standing press. It lasted one night and twenty holes. When I got up in the morning to drill some more holes I tried turning it on and...it wouldn't go on. I pulled off the switch and ohmed it out, and the switch itself was broken. I made some jumpers to connect the two wires coming off the switch, turned it on and it ran fine. I first thought to myself, "I can go to Home Depot, buy a switch and an electrical box, and install a new switch on this thing that'll work fine." Then I thought to myself, "exactly why are you planning to field-modify a tool that's less than 24 hours old?" It went back to Harbor Freight.
What I wound up with is a Grizzly Industrial "Shop Fox" brand oscillating bench-mount 3/4-horse drill press. I made a neat little stand with wheels for it. Works great and is plenty (ful)filling. The "oscillating" thing is for sanding - they give you a little kit with it that contains three rubber drums in different sizes, plus a few sanding sleeves, and it becomes a pretty decent edge sander. The only issue I have with the sanding kit is, for some reason, the drums don't fit the sanding sleeves Grizzly sells. Maybe I got a bad set. I don't think I'd get the oscillating model anymore; I paid under $400 for it in 2020 and it's nearly $700 now. The thing I like best about Grizzly drill presses is that there's a screw in the chuck shaft that lets you attach it to the quill a lot more securely than just jamming a Jacobs taper into its hole. They also give you a chuck key with a spring-loaded pin in it to force the key out of the chuck after you've finished tightening a drill bit, which keeps you from turning the DP on with the key still in the chuck. I bought mine from the Grizzly store in Bellingham, WA, but they will ship.
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