Lidl (Parkside) Pillar Drill.

[MikeJhn]

Take them all to a scrap yard and get at least something back for your trouble.

Mike

 

[AJB Temple]

I bought a Fobco. I would not swap it for all the drills from China....

 

[No skills]

By the sounds of it there are no drills left in China.

 

[BearTricks]

On a related note I bought a set of drill bits from Lidl and while the ones for drilling metal and concrete (granted they don't get a huge amount of use) seem fine, three of the wood ones snapped in half mid way through drilling pilot holes.

Lidl and Aldi tools seem entirely hit and miss. I've had more luck overall with Aldi but their clamps are atrocious.

 

[Rims00]

At the risk of resurrecting a dead thread, I thought I should update my experiences to close this episode, since I have now finally received a working replacement. (You will recall all this dates back to February!).

Also I note lidl are once again to be selling this same model pillar drill next week (albeit £10 cheaper?!), and others may stumble across this thread looking for guidance.

Some months ago I received a phoned and honest apology from the service team in England, with a promise of a working replacement, and an apologetic explanation there would be a delay before further shipments come in from abroad.

I finally received said replacement 3 weeks ago. I have given it to my daughter's partner ( I have since bought a used warco), and we set it up together. It displays all the same faults, wobbly quill etc. In particular, to my surprise the adjustable drilling table is identical in not being square to the pillar, the front edge higher than the back. It must be a fault with the welding jig then, rather than a one off, unless it is a specific design? It's still too flexible, and flexes downwards when moderate drilling pressure is applied, which you could say then brings it closer to true?

In any case, the advice remains the same. Don't buy.

 

[Roving Rich]

Thanks for the advice and keeping the thread alive.
They are available at lidl again this week. Fortunately I was wise enough to research before buying.
I current use an old cast iron "denby" machine. But it does not go slow enough for drilling metal IMO.
I will avoid the lidl one. Thanks
Richard

 

[thick_mike]

I have a Fobco Star that I love, but if I had to carry it out of the shed every time I needed to use it, I'd be in A&E.

 

[graduate_owner]

Slightly different but I bought a Nutool bench drill press about 15 or more years ago. It still works but it is such an annoying item. The motor lacks any punch, the table isn't at right angles to the quill ( or the quill has significant run out - or both), and overall it just isn't nice to use. But - it does drill holes and provided accuracy is not an issue then I have to say it sort of does the job. I wouldn't buy another, but at £45 what should I have expected? Even so it sounds like it is far superior to the Lidl one.

I bought a floor standing drill from Axminster, on special offer for £200 reduced from £300. It is a hobby class and is far and away better than the Nutool. I just wonder what a proper drill press would be like to use, say a Fobco or a Meddings. Probably an order of magnitude up from my Axminster but I had Axminster vouchers and at 1/3 off, well it was a no brainer. Overall it is quite useable, some run out and not a machine for accurate metal working but a lot of kit for £200. When I need accuracy, my milling machine takes over. Would still like a Fobco or a Meddings or similar though.

K

 

[smartecosse]

I bought one last time round, found it quite a disappointment so took it back and for the same money managed to find a nutool floor standing pillar drill.......

I'd previously bought a mitre saw from lidl which has had a very hard life and had stood up to it very well.

 

[Rims00]

The trouble is Parkside is an 'umbrella' brand belonging to Lidl. They contract different manufacturers to actually produce the item. So one Parkside tool may have an entirely different manufacturer and provenance to another. The only thing in common seems to be the colour scheme, and the 3 year guarantee, which in general is not to be sniffed at.

The pillar drill, or at least this version, is made by Grizzly. They are an apparently respected manufacturer when it comes to their industrial tools. But this thing is bottom end Chinese.

So buying Lidl is indeed hit and miss. Some stuff is amazing value and excellent quality. Other tools are at the other end of the scale. Hence the value of threads like this in sifting through them.

The same seems to apply to their other in house brands, and of relevance here are Powerfix tools, which have similar variability. (Witness my apparently nice set of 3 carpenters squares - one wasn't square, and the inch scale on all three was subdivided into sixths. Sixths?! Only the Chinese...)

 

[Eric The Viking]

Thanks for the advice and keeping the thread alive.
They are available at lidl again this week. Fortunately I was wise enough to research before buying.
I current use an old cast iron "denby" machine. But it does not go slow enough for drilling metal IMO.
I will avoid the lidl one. Thanks
Richard

When I was looking I had difficulty finding slow speed drill presses. It was the most important feature I wanted when I bought mine (a floor-standing Clarke).

The Clarke is not a work of extreme precision* (and the first one went back because of poor runout), but I've used that slow speed time and again, and for really odd things, for example yesterday when cleaning up a thumbwheel from a plane I am restoring. On the slowest speed I can chuck the item and apply Emery cloth to it gently and safely.

Obviously it's also important when using big jobber drills for metalwork, and running large Forstners too. It's got roughly 3 3/8" quill travel (80mm approx.)

Older is probably far better in this regard. The slowest I can get is 180 RPM.

E.

PS: Also important is the ability to remove individual arms of the depth "wheel" - the number of times they end up fouling a workpiece... !

*a proper Rohm chuck (and non-Chinese MT2 adapter) has helped the runout enormously, but it's still far from perfect.