ProDrill Press Table V3

Above: The Prodrill Press Table kit comes with with fixings, clamps, flip stops and sacrificial inserts. The metric scales are not shown but fit over the T-tracks and fence.

Review: James Brook

All drill presses come with a metal work table and mostly this is sufficient for the majority of your drilling work. I say mostly because for large workpieces or repetitive drilling you may need to bolt on a larger work table made from ply or MDF and possibly rig up a shopmade fence system.

But if you want something better than this with greater accuracy then consider one of these aftermarket drill tables. The base of the ProDrill Press Table V3 is a large 600 x 400mm section of melamine faced MDF giving ample support for pretty well all drilling jobs. The melamine is hard wearing, but a hard laminate would improve the work surface.

The base is pre-machined to accept the supplied T-track fittings and the kit comes complete with two T-track clamps, metric scales, sacrificial inserts and best of all, a 915mm long aluminium fence and two flip-stops.

You can fit this to all drill presses, although you will need to add your own ply or MDF packer for the table to clear the winder on the drill press. Having said that, I mounted it to my drill press easily without a packing board by offsetting it slightly. If you have one of the popular Bosch PBD40 drill presses, a $13 fixing kit will make fitment seamless and simple to remove if needed.

Once installed this kit is a great addition to any drill press. The large table makes things so much easier with its extra support whilst the clamps make for safer and more accurate drilling, particularly for smaller pieces of wood. The fence with its two large clamps is fast and easy to set up and the flip-stops are perfect for multiple drilling jobs. The table itself is Australian made and most of the extra fittings are from Woodpeckers in the USA so all up it oozes quality. I liked it a lot. At time of writing priced at $245 the system should pay for itself quite quickly. The review kit came with two knuckle clamps which at $70 each can provide some extra holding power.

Review drill press table from Professional Woodworkers Supplies, www.woodworksupplies.com.au

James Brook is a longstanding contributor to Australian Wood Review magazine.