Very well thought out review. Loved the accuracy tests and fluid presentation. Thank you.

Thanks for the thorough review. I have been eyeballing this for some time as a replacement for my older 8" benchtop drill press. Big selling points for me are high HP motor, low speed (especially for steel), variable speed, 3" spindle travel, LED work light, laser sight, and crank-up table.

Thanks for your thoughtful review. It helped me have confidence in my pending purchase.

Hi Mark - Thanks for you very good review. I did go with the Rikon VS, however when assembled I had a very similar problem as you - way too much vibration to be acceptable. I went back to Woodcraft & explained the situation & showed them a video of my glass of water dancing across the top, like yours. The offered to exchange for another new one. I asked if they could fire up the display model. They agreed and move it to their classroom workshop, plugged it in & - SAME SHAKE RATTLE & ROLL!!!! as the first one. Just returned my purchased for a refund. Now I'm back in the hunt. Lower RPM range is a big item for me. I'm starting knife making & for holes up to 3/8" 500 RPM minimum speed is OK for CS & SS but larger starts to prefer under 500. Thanks again for your review. Glad you were able to get your problem resolved to your satisfaction & are able to enjoy the benefits of the 212VS. David

Excellent review! This was very useful for my drill press research and I picked up a few new tips!

Good review..honest and straight forward.

I bought one today. Saw this video awhile back looked at others settled on rikon for my needs.

Sorry, I read through the other comments and got my answer. Thanks for the great review.

Thank you for the review sir. I enjoy your representation.

I am wondering if you could provide an update after over three years. I am looking at this product and felt you said a lot of very positive things for a 3.5 rating and it is the best I'm finding in this price range as far as low rpms for larger bits, features, etc. Your update would really help me and most definitely others in making a decision.

Thanks for sharing. You definitely know drill presses.

Nice review. Subbed after watching. I'm in the market for a new bench top drill press and this looks like a perfect fit for me.

Great video! Thanks for sharing this.

Alright, a little coincidence here. Shopping for a drill press upgrade myself (Mark), and I’ve had the same Craftsmen drill press for about 20 years. The Rikon is on my list of possibles. Thanks for the review.

I’ve had this drill press for a few years and am generally pleased with it. The laser crosshairs are sometimes annoying as described. I tend not to rely on such things so not as bothersome to me. I recently tried to use my old delta mortising attachment and found that this requires disassembly of the inexact depth gauge so that attachment is not useful. I find the speed pulley change more annoying. I too, didn’t realize that until after purchase. After all that I’m generally pleased. I own a rikon bandsaw and lathe as well. I’ve had a good service experience as well when I had a bearing issue with the lathe. They replaced them under warranty. In contrast, my customer service experience with Laguna for my cyclone dust collector was terrible, enough to dissuade me from ever buying another Laguna product.

Thank you for this review

I dont see any of the other models that let you go under 500, this is awesome, even if you have to jump up there and do the classic belt switch.

Thanks!!! Useful info!

Good review! I've been looking at this one and the Jet benchtop. The variable speed change is a huge plus for me. Plastic, not so much.

its discouraging to see that someone such as yourself who obviously has done lots of research can still wind up with a product that has issues right out of the box...i'm in the midst of my own drill press search and its a real rabbit hole....thanks for the great review...if you have any other ones you can recommend i would greatly appreciate it

Excellent review, honest and thorough. I'm just starting to look at drill presses to replace my old 12" Dayton. I'm surprised about the lapse in QC, Rikon is supposed to be a bit better than other sellers of China-made machines. How many hours did you spend on cleaning it from grease, dealing with the pulley issue and fine-tuning the table?

Mate do you know what are the right RPM for stainles steel drilling?

great informative video! thumbs up from me!

thanks for taking the time to review this. On sale at Woodcraft in April and seriously looking at this one. Do you find that you are performing the manual belt changeover often, or is most of your work covered by the low end settings?

@diymark Excellent and informative review! 👍 Don't know why you don't have more subscribers!?!? And yes, many of these types of tools that are based around heavy cast-iron parts and are badged with a multitude of brand names are in fact manufactured in the same Chinese factory. Very few factories in the U.S. are still manufacturing cast-iron. The ones that still do are usually company-owned subsidiaries of giant ship-building companies or the like. It's a "dirty" or toxic process, and the American EPA and EU Regulations make it financially unfeasible for most companies to manufacturer profitably. You have to move up to higher-end professional/industrial tools to get superior and unique designs with higher tolerances. This obviously means increased cost. One of the better ones to check out is Harvey Industries. Unfortunately, I don't believe they are manufacturing a drill press yet, but I sure hope that they do in the near future! Of course, you're going to pay for that quality, but my M.O. is "Buy Once, Cry Once... & Live Happily Ever After", LOL. harveymachinery.com/ Other good brands for a quality drill press are Optimum, Dake, and Knuth. I'm really liking the quality and performance of the Jet J-2530 15'' benchtop, but it is MASSIVE. AND it's a bare-bones/no-frills machine that lacks the nice features of this Rikon. You pay a bit more for the Rikon compared to it's WEN and other look-alikes due to its additional features, and (usually) a step up in quality over its competitors. You also have to pay for that level of Rikon customer service, but IMPO it's definitely worth the extra expense. Thanks again for the detailed information.

I commented a year or so ago that I was considering this drill press - this year my dear wife gave it to me for my birthday. I have just finished setting it up and so far I'm very happy with it. I've noticed that in the slow speed range a fair bit of effort is required on the variable speed lever to reduce the speed. Is this a common issue?

Nice review! Wonder if you have an opinion on the Rikon - 34'' Bench Drill Press?

I'm really just getting started with woodworking and I don't have a clue what size drill press and bandsaw to get. I'm leaning towards the WEN. 10 inch on both tools. I mainly stopped there because of the price jump in going bigger and I'm on a fixed income. I plan on doing mostly small woodworking projects. What is the price point on the Rikon? Thanks for sharing your talent and videos Mark. I appreciate the time and effort that it takes to make these videos. Rodney

Great video - super helpful - thank you. Just curious - would you consider any others? I’m looking for a new drill press and really want the features of this Rikon but wonder if there’s a comparable product from other manufacturers?

Thanks for the video Mark! Any updates since the purchase. How's it holding up?

Nice review but lately I've been considering a Wen or Bucktool 12 inch benchtop drill press. I've never owned any benchtop drill presses but now that I have a workshop, I'm all-in to buy one. Thanks for the detailed video. 👍🏽🤠 06/24/24

Thanks for doing this Mark. Great review. I've been eyeing this drill press for quite a while. I'm really surprised that it got out of the factory in that condition. The whole point of Rikon was that they were supposed to have better QC than other brands that use the same factories/components. If you hadn't had that issue, would you have rated it a 4?

I just bought this machine and have the same excessive vibration problem. Are you saying that you didnt need to replace the pulley but just needed to readjust it?

I just received and assembled this machine. To be honest, I was taken back by how big it is! So far I've only had to adjust the laser. That is very easy to do, loosening two set screws and turning the laser light nut. I do have once concern. The handle on the left side (as you are in front, looking at the machine) used to adjust the speed is extremely stiff. I'm not sure if this is normal or if there is a way to loosen it up a bit so it's easier to move. Otherwise, this seems like more than enough machine for me. It doesn't appear to be a sloppy build.

This seems to be the exact same drill press as the WEN 4214 but around twice the price. It looks like they come out of the same Chinese factory and both are packaged with a LOT of machine oil.

I would like to have hear the press run and how smooth does the press go up and down thank you

So did you receive and keep the new pulley. Great review but I have the 15 inch JET floor drill press. It was definitely worth the money

Thanks. This machine in some ways looks much like the Wen 12 inch. For a lot more money and less flexibility on the variable speed (Wen does not have a belt change). However, the Wen does not go below 530 rpm.

Hi Mark, thanks for the great review. I just bought the same drill press and I’m having the very same issue. I haven’t tried to take it apart yet it’s a little intimidating. Can you get back to me and let me know the difficulty you had in addressing the issue?

I got a question. Are those pulleys steel or aluminum? I had a Delta that was variable speed like that only they were aluminum and ended up wearing out where the belt would slide across them as it was adjusted

I'm having some wobble issues with my newly purchased 12 vs. Could you provide some more info on how you fixed your wobbling issue?

Several of these bench top are basic same drill presses rebadged. If your using Mortise bits for wood working you'll want low speed below 200 RPM for larger bits. Most variable will not get that low.

This is an almost exact copy of the WEN 12 inch drill press, except the lower gear option. Everything else looks like they used the same parts.

Any remorse on this purchase compared to other models? I'm considering it. Nice review.

What website did you buy the drill press from?

I watched you check the table flatness with a noga base and was wondering why you didn’t use it to check the table perpendicularity as well? You can easily mag that base to the chuck and spin it freely to see how far off the table is. Far easier than using a brass rod. Just a thought.

Well, I guess if you charge almost $200 more than your competition(WEN) then you can have good tech support.

At 2:32 you say: "I measured the runout of the chuck arbor with a dial indicator and it spun true within half a thousand." The video show the entire setup, from drill press to dial indicator, shaking as if there's an earthquake! I trust you locked things down before you ran the actual test? If it's any consolation, 90% of KZfaq videos on budget drill presses have the same quaking shot as they test the runout of the drill. Excellent video otherwise, has me seriously considering the Rikon.

Does it have quill lock down?

precision engineered wobble, lmao

Kko

Gee, quality issuez at a chinese facrory. What a surprise. 🙄