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I've recently bought this hammer drill for the purpose of getting a drill press holder. I like my tools modular.

I was about to get above type of drill press, when I checked my options for an actual drill press

I was expecting much significantly better specs:
both nearly the same top speed -- 3000 rpm for my drill and 2900 rpm for the latter. both has 12 speeds, but mine has a handling of 7A, while the latter is 3.85A.

To me, at least torque is more important than speed and neither shows it explicitly.

So,

  1. Which one has a higher torque?

    If I was to assume that the current handling is actually reached at some given (usable) speed and assuming that given (usable) speed is nearly the same for both drills, then my current drill has more peak torque, obviously. Assuming the given speed is usable.

  2. If my drill has higher torque, then why so? I mean look at the casing for the latter's drill, it's definitely larger.

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If torque is your objective, the drill press is going to provide more. It appears to use the same gearing as my quite-old Sears Craftsman drill press in that one releases a sliding motor mount, pulling the motor forward. Re-position the drive belts to a different pair of stepped pulleys for ratio change, then re-tension by pushing the motor aft and tightening the clamps/levers/bolts.

Any time you reduce speed by a gearing change, torque is increased. The hammer drill likely uses some form of electronic speed change, pulse width modulation, for example. As such, the amount of power transmitted is reduced for a specific period of time. Reduced (electrical) power, reduced torque.

One can bog down a variable speed hand drill by running it at a low enough rpm. It is nearly impossible to do so with a belt drive drill press, if one had one geared low enough to match.

I see that your hammer drill is not 12 speeds, but fully variable across the speed range, by the way.

Each tool choice is a compromise of sorts. The drill press will provide a stable surface on which to place parts and provide for greater accuracy with respect to squareness and precision. It's not going to be something to drag out to the backyard or driveway for an assembly project, however.

The hand drill has portability and light weight, but lacks precision and stability. A hole saw bit in a drill press is a good combination for comparison. Put the same hole saw into a hand drill and you won't get quite as smooth a hole and if the saw is large enough, it will be challenging to hang on to.

On the flip side, you won't be using a drill press to prepare concrete for anchors, as you can with the hammer drill.

Why not buy both?

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  • My hammer drill may be electronically, continuously variable (I'm not sure). But the knob is notched to 12 position, so that's what I put in my question.
    – kozner
    Nov 12, 2016 at 2:14
  • I'm not conceding to buying both as I lack the space. A full fledged drill press is too big and bulky to be stowed in a corner somewhere. My needs for drilling at the most heavy duty requirement is usually with wood or small holes in pieces of metal. So I thought I could just do away with that for now.
    – kozner
    Nov 12, 2016 at 2:19
  • "Gearing"... Yep, that's the mechanical detail that I'm not considering (or rather know). So with this, the main motor is moving at a high torque fairly constant speed and therefore power, right? So with higher gear, the chuck is moving slower, but at a higher torque and with the smaller gear, vice versa?
    – kozner
    Nov 12, 2016 at 2:25
  • As your original post was for torque, that was my focus. A good quality hand-held drill will likely cover your wood and metal tasks. Re: last comment, high torque = low chuck rpm, low gear. Ex: motor at 100 rpm provides 10 Nm, one to five gearing gives 20 rpm, 50 Nm torque, ignoring friction losses. No torque improvement in electronic speed control, likely some reduction, but wood bits and small metal bits aren't going to require more torque than your powered hand drill can provide.
    – fred_dot_u
    Nov 12, 2016 at 13:09
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If you are doing any kind of precision drilling, you would want to avoid using this style of drill press. These were much more common back in the old days when drill presses were very expensive. In todays dollars, they were probably well over $1000. You can get a decent tabletop drill press pretty cheaply today. There are plenty of good ones in the $200-300 range; which should be affordable to just about everyone.

The object of having a drill press is the ability to drill holes that are precise. It is difficult to get a drill press holder to hold the hand held drill properly. There are two styles of these that I have seen. One uses the shaft of the drill directly, and the other one uses a flex shaft. Neither of these designs are that great. The one that is direct drive may not be able to hold the drill perpendicular to the table. You would need to use a carpenter's square to check for square. Even if you managed to get it perfect, the drill can slip in the holder and go out of adjustment. Flex shafts are limited to the amount of torque and RPMs they can handle.

Newer style drills really aren't built for this kind of thing. They are oddly shaped, and were only designed to be used in handheld drilling, except for a few specialty drills. Old tools dating back to the 50s and 60s were designed to allow you to attach a wide assortment of accessories. The drill press attachment was only one of them. The cases of the drills were all metal, and could be securely clamped into a fixture without damaging them. In the picture below, the drill and the stand are most likely made by the same manufacturer, and it was designed for this use. As you can see, the drill is attached firmly to the base.

Old School Drillpress

If you can afford it, you are much better off with a drill press.

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