As just an occasional crafstman, I had hoped to avoid buying adrill press by gettting one of these. Unfortunately, there is too much slop in the mechanism to keep the drill from wandering in even soft woods like fir. For 90 degree holes a limited number of sizes, a doweling jig is a better choice. (several nice ones listed here on amazon). If you need help drilling at an angle, you would be better off making an angled doweling jig out of wood. (of course you still have to be able to saw at an angle, but that's another topic) END General Tool 36/37 Accu Precision Drill Guide
It is not steady for any work. I returned it the next day where I bought it from. You need to have a drill with 1/2" chuck but you can use only the drill bit upto 3/8". If you have a drill driver that accepts upto 3/8" bit you need to buy an adapter. If you want to use 1/2" drill bit you need to buy optional adapter again. This is ridiculous. The base is not steady enough for most work. It isn't built that bad. It looks nice but what is the use?
I bought both, but will be returning the General. The Craftsman equivalent, #967173, is built better. Unlike what a previous reviewer says, this particular Craftsman unit does not require you to remove the chuck from your drill. The bushing run out is similar on both units, with the Craftsman probably a little tighter - at least comparing the units I have. The Craftsman is also made of cast aluminum with much thicker and heavier support bars. There is also a spring return that should help press the unit against your work for added stability. There is a handle and more surface area on the base for holding the unit against your work and applying clamps. The General is made of injection molded plastic, and lacks all of the above features.Plus, I bought my Craftsman for the regular store price of about 27 bucks. Pretty no-brainer on this one.
All right, General Tools description is a more than a little bit optimistic, but this fixture isn't that bad. I've found mine to come in handy a time or two, when I couldn't use my real drill press. It can drift a bit on deeper holes. Sears has a similar unit, but it requires you to remove the chuck from your drill,and thread the drill onto the guide, essentially rendering your drill exclusive to the guide. The only other similar item I know of is the old Port-Align, which doesn't seem to be sold anymore. A small warning, this fixture also is sold in a version without a chuck, for about $... less, so make sure what your getting if you see it elsewhere.
First off, I must admit that I'm not sure which General Tool Drill Guide I own, since it appears identical to both the "General Tools 36/37 Precision Drill Guide" AND the "General Tool H3487 Drill Guide"; except my version came with a handle. So I might be in the wrong place for this review. What I'm saying pertains to the model that has a handle on the base.
That said, I own both the Sears and General tool guides. I bought the Sears model first, and on the surface it looked like a better unit. It's made of metal, versus metal/plastic for the General guide. But I quickly got fed up with it: The collet wobbles quite a bit, and on top of that, it's BENT! I could kinda drill 90 degree holes, if I pushed it to one side just enough. But that got old really quickly.
So I bought the General Tool guide, but didn't expect much, since while mostly metal it does have a plastic base. I'm amazed to say, plastic isn't so bad! The runout is far less than the Sears Craftsman guide, and the unit as a whole is far sturdier in terms of flex and wiggle. Go figure. No drill guide is a drill press, but for what it is, it's pretty good. How it will hold up remains to be seen. But for now, I'm quite happy with it, and use it on a regular basis. The Sears drill guide is going to donation land.
I wasn't trying to substitute this for a drill press when I bought it, but I still found that it only works moderately well. I use it with an 18v Milwalkee cordless and this thing puts just enough friction on the movement to where it feels like I am using a 9v drill instead (it saps a lot of torque).
Also, the base creeps across the work surface whenever you try to drill a hole at an angle for more than just a pilot-depth hole.
I bought this item for a specific project and ultimately I ended up using either a cheap plastic doweling jig or no jig at all about 90% of the time. This thing was just too cumbersome and imprecise to really be worth the effort.
One must wonder if there's gray matter inside the heads of some 'engineers.' I post the simple question, "How many times in 99.99999% of the population's lives, does one need to drill a hole at other than 90 degrees (or even the uncommon 45 degrees)?"
Why would any 'engineer' design a drill guide tool with no DETENT FOR 90 AND 45 DEGREES?
Good luck with this tool, setting it a precisely 90 degrees, clearly where 99.99999999999999999999% of the entire holes in the world are desired.
If you want a hole at 90 degrees to a surface, or perpendicular to a tangent line of a rod/bar/pipe, go somewhere else, cause this item isn't going to do it.
Now, if you'd be satisfied with the hole at 89.44129 degrees, or anywhere else from about 12.493452430 degrees, up to 168.283498 degrees, specifically EXCLUDING THE COMMONLY DESIRED 45 DEGREES, and ALMOST ALWAYS WANTED 90 DEGREES, then FINE, HERE YOU GO!!!!!!
I bought both, but will be returning the General. The Craftsman equivalent, #967173, is built better. Unlike what a previous reviewer says, this particular Craftsman unit does not require you to remove the chuck from your drill. The bushing runout is similar on both units, with the Craftsman probably a little tighter - at least comparing the units I have. The Craftsman is also made of cast aluminum with much thicker and heavier guide bars. There is also a spring return that should help press the unit flat against your work for added stability. There is a handle and more surface area on the base for holding the unit against your work and applying clamps. The General is made of injection molded plastic, and lacks all of the above features.Plus, I bought my Craftsman for the regular store price of about 27 bucks. Pretty no-brainer on this one. - Doweling Jigs - Drill - Bench Press - Drill Accessories'
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