Greg B looks like from the pictures in the manual for that thing the chuck could be a taper mount. If so you may want to knock the chuck off and check the spindle of the drill press for trueness. It may be that it is all in the chuck. It probably mounts to the spindle with a Jacobs taper. A new better chuck may fix it. I just replaced the chuck on mine with one off of ebay for about 20 bucks and it works well.

Last edited by DC (2/14/2018 3:22 PM)

Home Depot sells quite a few different table top drill presses on line.

I gave away a Ryobi press to replace it with a mill drill that I bought used. It was about 3 times the price of a new Ryobi (in Oz), but sooo much better.

I'd check Craigslist for something used.  My drill press is one my neighbor gave me 15 years ago.  Its some brand that doesn't exist anymore and I use an ill fitting universal chuck on it I bought at Harbor Freight(I think).  Its been good enough for everything I've needed it to do, including finishing up a couple 80% AR-15 lower receivers using templates which allow me to use an endmill in it.  It took a bit of practice, but the last couple I did look like they were made by Colt using million dollar equipment. 

In general I'm finding that tools today, by and large are like everything else: throwaway.  Nothing's made the way it used to be when everything was machined or cast from metal.  Nowadays everything is plastic and just doesn't hold up.  When possible with stuff like this I buy older equipment that still has a lot of life left in it for a fraction of buying new junk. 

Gotta agree.  In the Contracting world we refer to Ryobi as a "homeowner special".  Light duty tools not meant for serious use. 

I inherited a couple of Albrecht keyless chucks and they are, IMO, the hands-down finest.  Yes, they are German and they are VERRRRRRRRY pricey.  But man, do they work well.  Jacobs was always the US made standard and a very fine product but I don't know about the current crop.  As for Royobi, well, I needed a cordless drill to run the stabilizer jacks on our travel trailer and HD had a deal on the Royobi drill and impact driver.  I can't kill either and have zero complaints.  Normally I would have stepped up to DeWalt or Makita or Milwaukee but decided to give 'em a try.  I have since purchased a Royobi 40V cordless leaf blower, string trimmer (my Cub 4-stroke gave up) and hedge trimmer.  All are performing perfectly and seem to me to be a good buy for average home-owner applications even though I probably work everything a bit harder than "average".

Just sayin'

BB

BB, let me borrow that Ryobi set for a week.  I guarantee it'll be toast by Friday.  Run 3" screws with the impact driver all day, or bore 4" holes through 2x lumber with the drill.  Guaranteed bye, bye.  A couple tough tasks aren't going to kill them.  You could buy a $20 set from HF that would last the same doing the same stuff.  What kills the stuff is 8 hours straight using it at its limit.  That's where the good stuff lasts and the cheap stuff fails. 

I will say that I gave up on Makita cordless stuff about 5 years ago.  Once they went to the 3 speed transmissions they just couldn't hold up.  They'd always blow 3rd gear.  Then in the lower gears you'd eventually overheat the motor and fry it trying to really use it.  I bought a Milwaukee combo set back then that I still have and still use every day.  Even that setup I had to rebuild the drill and impact driver motors once each and put two chucks on the drill.  The DeWalt stuff is really good now.  Their batteries used to be junk, but they got that sorted out once they got away from Nmh batteries.

DeWalt also now has cordless chop saws and table saws.  their new batteries are wired such that they can provide long life at low amp draw or short life at high amp draw.  Pretty amazing technology.

Anyway, off topic, but some info from a guy who counts on tools every day to make a living.  The cheap stuff has its place; its just not a construction site.  But, for the average user why pay the premium? 

Already got it done.   Not really much joy.   Knocked the old chuck off with a light tap of a ball joint pickle fork (can we say the heck with the bearings)  but it worked.    .002 runout on the taper.  and the new chuck is .006.   It is visibly better, but  wish it were.  






Sorry the pictures arent the greatest      Think I will hit up craigslist   What are the chance of finding a good ole American drill press with a   Jacobs 33 taper?  

I've used MSC direct through work to replace a morse taper drill chuck. They might have what you are looking for. https://www.mscdirect.com/ They do list the country of origin on there stuff.

I go an older Delta floor model from craiglist about 10 years ago and that's what I suggest you do.  I also fitted it with a better chuck.  Very happy with it.  Even though it had the typical pulley system on the top for varying the speed, it was still too fast for drilling through metal.   I think the biggest mistake people make when drilling metal is using too high of a speed.  IMO if you're having to add cutting fluid to keep the bit cool and you're not creating metal curls when drilling, the drilling speed is too fast.  I fitted it with a speed reduction kit from Rogue Fabrication, which works very well.  Now I can go all the way down to about 100 rpm, which works very well for large diameter bits.

Be careful when selecting speed reducers, some of the cheap ones reduce the motors torque.
 I have had a "Jet" floor model drill press for over 55 years and has served me very well.
 For larger holes I have a milling machine that can take 1 1/2" drill or boring for anything larger than that.
 Mill/drills are reasonably priced these days and for being made somewhere in Asia are not that bad. When I got mine I had to remove the table and scrape in the ways to correct an issue. At the time I also put in a one shot oiling system.

I personally think the problem is a defective bearing.  I took the belt off completely, it just has a weird feel to the spin.   I could have went up to Fastenal and got a couple of bearings for like a 1.50 each, but I decided to spend a lil extra and ordered some SKF bearings.  I did also order another shaft, since it was only 8 bucks as well.   Im hoping this effort makes it fairly useable.

Im going to start searching craigslist all the time for a good Rockwell/Delta or such floor drill press, the way I constantly monitor for Galaxie, Mustang, and Ford parts.   Maybe I will save up and try to find a bench top south bend drill mill.  those pop up on craigslist from time to time too.