I have a small workshop. Well, it seems kind of small to me anyway. It’s a 2-car garage with a washer and a dryer taking up valuable floor space, and also a water heater over in the corner…yes, taking up more valuable floor space. I understand that a lot of people are working in a much smaller shop than me and I’ve got to commend them for their organization! Every time I see somebody working out of a 1-car garage or maybe something even smaller, I’m always amazed at how well they have things organized.

Anyway, this isn’t a blog post about shop organization. It’s a blog post about my newest addition to the shop, the JET JDP-15B benchtop drill press, woohoo!!! This big beautiful beast is a welcome addition, and it’s replacing my old, much smaller Ryobi drill press:

I knew this thing was going to be bigger than my old one, but it didn’t hit me just how much bigger until I pulled the parts out of the box and started assembling it. Assembly of the new drill press was super easy, and if I wasn’t filming it for my YouTube channel (see the individual link below) I probably would’ve been done assembling it in about 20-30 minutes. There are also a couple parts of the assembly where two people are recommended but you may be able to get away with it by yourself depending on whether or not you ate your Wheaties that day.

There are a few points to go over here, but I want to make sure you check out the video too. I’m very happy with how the video came out and I’ve already had a lot of viewers tell me how helpful it was for them when making their drill press decision. I had my wife help me by being my camera operator for most of it and she did a great job. She’s hired, haha! Here’s a link to view the finished video of the unboxing, assembly and some testing of the JET JDP-15B drill press:

Here are some key features to point out about the JET JDP-15B drill press.

MOTOR:

The JET JDP-15B drill press has a 3/4 horsepower motor in it, which is super nice compared to the little 1/4 horsepower motor in my old Ryobi drill press. Somebody on Instagram asked me why a more powerful motor matters if all this is supposed to do is drill holes. Well, a more powerful motor is going to help when you need to hog out larger amounts of material. For instance, say you’re using a large diameter forstner bit. First you’ll change your pulley speed accordingly, but since you’ll be running that large bit at a slower speed you’ll want the power to push through the material. On the Ryobi, I’d run into issues with the bit getting stuck because it couldn’t get through the material. The motor just didn’t have the strength to do the job easily. Now with the extra power of the JET, it’s not a problem.

PULLEYS + SPEEDS

The pulleys and belts are set up beautifully, and are pretty simple to change and adjust. The tensioning knob is such a great improvement over my old drill press and is really easy to lock it just right. With 16 speeds (210 rpm – 3500 rpm) on the JET model, there are a lot more options to make sure you’re properly set up for a wide range of materials and bit sizes.

CHUCK

A big beefy chuck accepts bits up to 5/8″ shank size and includes a spring-loaded chuck key. From what somebody was telling me, you can get different chucks if you so desire. I don’t really know why you’d need to unless for some reason this one broke, but so far so good and I doubt I’ll ever need to put a different chuck in here.

SPINDLE TRAVEL

Another huge improvement over my old drill press is the spindle travel. The JDP-15B has 3-1/8″ of spindle travel. When I’m turning the handle it’s like it never stops, haha! My old Ryobi only had just a hair over 2-1/4″ of travel, so this is a big difference!

DEPTH STOP

The depth stop on the JET JDP-15B is different than what I’ve seen on most drill presses. Usually I see a threaded post with 2 nuts on it, and you turn the two nuts together until they’re tight, and that’s how you lock your depth. With this model, there’s no threaded post and no nuts to tighten together. Instead, there’s a ring on the same side as the handle, and a knob on the handle and setting/locking the depth is pretty easy once you understand how to do it and I explain how it’s done in my video. I recommend you give it a watch 🙂

LIGHT + LASERS

The light is a nice bright LED and the laser is your standard laser crosshair. If the laser should ever work it’s way out of alignment, it’s really easy to adjust. Mine wasn’t quite perfect out of the box, but by simply (and carefully) turning the lasers with some pliers I was dead center in about 10 seconds.

DRILL PRESS TABLE

I LOVE this table. It’s solid cast iron of course, but the feature that I really like are the slots on the table. These slots are perfect for t-slot hold down clamps, but the shape of the slots also allows me to use my Festool quick clamps and I can seriously secure my workpiece to the table using these. I can also use my existing drill press fence in these slots. On my old drill press I had to build an add-on table and install t-track on it in order to be able to use any hold down clamps or the fence itself. Having the track built into the table now means I don’t have to add another shop project to my to-do list! Thank you JET for including this feature! Additionally, when I built my drill press table for the Ryobi, it interfered with the crank handle used for raising and lowering the table. So I had removed the handle and was raising and lowering the table in a very uncomfortable and annoying way. I do NOT have this problem with the JET drill press. Everything is smooth sailing!

NOISE + VIBRATION

It took me a few trips to and from the drill press before I realized something very nice. After using it a few times I had to stop and say to myself “something else is different” but I couldn’t put my finger on it at first. Then I realized when I turned on the JET JDP-15B drill press, and as I’m holding my workpiece on the table, I could barely even feel the motor kick on. It was THAT smooth! There’s virtually no vibration on the table, and the motor runs much much more quietly than the Ryobi. That thing sounds like a small tank is rumbling through the garage, but the JET is nice and smooth.

It probably goes without saying but I’m really happy to have this tool in my shop. As I progress and improve the quality of my builds and projects, I’m trying to progress and improve the quality of my tools as well. I think the JET JDP-15B drill press is one of those “lifetime tools”. If I ever move into a bigger shop and am able to have more space it would be cool to add it’s big brother, the JET JDP-17 (floor standing model) into the mix. Hey, I can dream, can’t I? 🙂

I hope you found this article to be helpful, and I hope you’ll check out my video too, and consider subscribing to my YouTube channel if you’re not already a subscriber.
I hope you’ll also check out the Stuff Seth Makes Amazon Storefront if you’re looking for any of the tools I use in the shop or any of the products I’ve used on other projects.

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