An adjustable drill press table

Until mid August I had a 12″ bench top drill press in my shop, that I got as a college graduation gift from my dad. It had a powerful motor, but like most bench tops a small throat capacity. Because of the limited throat capacity I never built a table for it. When it gave up the ghost, I replaced it with a Jet JDP-17DX, and immediately added a table for it to my to-do list.

Fast forward to last weekend, and the table reached the top of the list. After settling on how I thought I was going to build the table, I went shopping for supplies. The first stop was the woodworking  store to pick up some t-track & star knobs to go with it.  As usual I browsed the lumber racks, & hand tools looking for anything new or interesting. I usually avoid the big power tools, but for some reason I decided to look them over anyway.  After a few minutes I worked my way over to the drill press section and came across a Woodpeckers drill press table. After playing with  it a little bit and seeing it was on sale for $119 I decided to buy it instead of making my own table.

I probably could have made something roughly equivalent to it for half the price, but right now I value my time more than a few extra dollars in my pocket. Since bringing it home, I’ve played with it some and the only thing I don’t care for are the work piece hold downs. They’re a good design but frankly I doubt I will ever use them, because I can’t think of the last time I felt the need to clamp a piece down.  I really like the fact that the fence is short, yet can be slid side to side so you can use the stops on wide boards. The replaceable insert is pretty nice as well as it’s  a 1/2″ thick and has leveling screws.  The insert for my stock table was 1/8″ and had no leveling ability, thus it was pretty useless. Hopefully  this table holds up to my sometimes heavy handed use, If it doesn’t I’ll be sure to write about it.