Hafco BD-325 Bench Drill Belt Drive

Sturdy and reliable bench drill press – Item was very easy to assemble with full instructions and safety warnings This has a round swivel and tilt turntable that allows for more flexibility when drilling Has 12 speeds for various types of metal being drilled Also comes with a rack and pinion vertical turntable adjuster so when locked in position there is no movement whatsoever Comes… Read more

with a large safety stop button on front and a chuck guard Replacement for a 40y old machine that had given up working Quality is excellent and has 1hp/750w motor

Well designed. Good quality – I bought this to replace an ageing Ryobi drill press. This drill press is quite heavy (40kg) so you do need a suitable stand, cabinet to locate it on. Unfortunately, mine arrived slightly damaged, obvious from the damaged packing foam. The top cover was bent which prevented the safety switch from being depressed to operate the machine. I… Read more

manually adjusted this so it would work.

The handle is one piece so there is no chance of it vibrating loose like the cheaper drill presses which use threaded rods which inevitably fall out. The depth gauge is very clear and easy to use. I swapped the chuck over for a keyless chuck, which just involves tapping out the old one and jamming the new one in (make sure it's the same morse taper). The guard gets really annoying, so that was removed.

The table moves up and down on a rack and pinion which has its advantages/disadvantages. It takes longer to move the table up and down, but you do have more control over it. Unfortunately, the handle is very close to the table though. If you were interested in getting a dedicated woodworking table (Woodpeckers / Carbatec / etc) to go on top of this, the handle would get in the way, so that's something to think about if it's intended for woodworking use.

It's fairly easy to change speeds. There's two locking knobs either side of the pulley cabinet to loosen off to provide slackness in the belts and change them around.

A good machine, very reliable. Just needs 2 people to assemble it and get it into position.