JET 15-Inch Floor Drill Press (JDP-15F)

Assembly was time consuming but not too bad. You NEED two people to lift the head unit. Seems accurate. I had to adjust the lasers, but that's expected. One sour note: the centering pin for the table tilt was junk. Just adjust and tighten table as usual, forget the pin. NOTE Customer service was very good about ordering the new pin part, but it'll take 1-2 months to get here. Fit and finish is impressive. NICE belt tensioner on top. Multi groove belts are better than the old kind. Also, it hogged a 1" spade bit (Not that sharp) through hard maple like it was pine. Nice power delivery.

The assembly instructions are not the best and there are a couple of steps that require a second pair of hands but, for the price, this is an excellent purchase. Speed changes are very easy and the laser alignment is perfect. The light is focused somewhat behind the workpiece but I rarely use it because my shop has good lighting. I purchased it for woodworking but I have tested it on aluminum, brass and steel with no difficulties. There are better machines available but they will cost two to three times what I paid for this. This was a great purchase for my budget and needs.

Where do I begin? The product is cheap, flimsy, and poorly designed. The various plastic bits are so weak as to be unsuitable for the purpose they were designed for. It's thin, and didn't survive basic unpacking. In their haste, the folks who packed it taped the manual to the bottom of the box so, any instructions for how to handle it were not encountered until you had unpacked the entire kit. The base had paint coming off in huge chunks. The power head is plain bad. Just not well designed at all. The spring cover literally fell off as soon as I lifted the power head out of the box, and the pulley cover began to crack and give, which cascaded into the panel cover for the on off switch snapping off at the two flimsy tabs that were overtorqued at the assembly line. Usually. I absolutely LOVE Jet products, and own quite a few rather good ones. This thing...avoid it like the plague. Spend the extra money and get something with quality built in. This is not that product. This is Tina's spouse, Tim Taylor. We use this account jointly as we are married. The tool purchases are always me.

This redesign is a bust. Buy one of the non-plastic faced models instead. Let me preface this by stating that I have owned many machines in the last 50 years of woodworking, some great, some bad, and some just OK. Pros: wide table and a good motor. Cons: Numerous. I will overlook having to go to the hardware store for a missing set screw and wing nut. This redesigned drill press was created to save manufacturing and material costs. Problems I encountered: Cannot remove table from column collar which makes it very unwieldly. There is no arm between the column collar and the table. You must lift table assembly over column while mating toothed bar into the geared collar, work it down the column, and secure the toothed bar with a collar ring. Not easy. You then slide the very heavy head onto the column. There is so much plastic on the head that it is very difficult to find lift points. The column was out of round at the top of the column, making a difficult lift even harder. Gave up and laid the column down on a couple boxes and worked the head onto the column with a lot of effort, then had someone hold the base and column, I then lifted the drill press to vertical position. The chuck does not appear to be fully seated in the arbor, but it is in as far as it will go. Run out is acceptable for a home woodworking shop. The laser is an unnecessary addition. A puck light replaces the spot for an incandescent bulb, but does not shine on the center of the table. The base of the drill press is small and the machine is top heavy. To mount on a mobile base you need to mount it on a doubled up 3/4" plywood base, wide enough to stabilize it. In summation: Don't buy. I was being generous with two stars.

After assembly, I was initially very impressed with this drill press. The motor was strong and it appeared to be well made. After about a year of VERY light use, the table broke off of the base. I’m not sure if it was faulty from the beginning or what. Nonetheless, very disappointing. I now have to order the parts to fix it which will bring my total investment up to another class of drill press.