In miscellaneous for sale, there is a post offering what the poster calls a mag drill. It is quite expensive, and the poster quotes the retail price, which is really expensive. Please help out the witless here. What is a mag drill, and what uses does it have to justify the cost? I would google it, but not even sure what to call it. Thanks.,
Mag drills of little use in most home shops, but in a fab shop they are invaluable. Basicly you have a drill mounted vertically on a slide, that slide is mounted on a magnet. rather than taking large or heavy items to a drill press you bring what is really a portable drill press to the work. line it up,flip the lever to engage the magnet and drill away.
Also look at El Polackos thread, he used one making this fab table. http://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/showthread.php?t=577892
Hell what do you consider expensive? I have been looking for one of those for awhile! all around 800 to 1000 bux, I will look and see now...... in misc you say? Ok 850 is not bad but not the one Iam looking for. Probably not the best drill for building cars but a must have if you do any kind of skid building with layout holes pre drilled in I beam. Or if your in the iron workers union......
Bux drill! I used one of them to drill out all the tooling for the over wing sweep fairings on the B1-B bombers! That is a powerful, accurate drill. Not needed for drilling gage holes in your dash
I paid $1800 for my Jancy Magnet drill and it was worth every penny. I find it extremely useful even at home. Put it on a 1/2 thick plate and you have a portable drill press. Most of them can use annular cutters which are like a heavy duty hole saw in that they cut the hole on the outside circumference only. Mine goes up to 2-3/8". Also, with annular cutters, you can move the hole over if you're a little off.
could have used that "mag drill" at the truck equipment shop i used to work at. when we would drill frame rails on heavy trucks to mount flatbeds and fabricated specialty bodies, we used a cobbed together cart with a heavy duty electric drill strapped to a saddle. the saddle had a vertical lead screw to set the drill's height. Even then (i was much younger) i knew there must have been a better way. what's he asking for the drill?
Discovery had a program about building the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan and they had two men running a air powered drill to make 2" diameter holes in 2" thick steel. It took two of them to hold the drill and turn a screw jack to put pressure on it. I could cut 4 holes with a magnet drill in the time it took them to drill one hole. They were talking about the drill they used being so old and was used on so many ships. Time to upgrade.
Like Tman said, invaluable as used on construction sites. When a fab shop drills the beam connection holes wrong, those mag drills are worth their weight in gold when making corrections 10, 15, 20 stories in the air.
If using upside down, secure with rope or clamps. When the power goes out, the "mag" part of a mag drill quits working. Ask me how I know.
I would also think the drill don't drill as well, with out power....lol....just don't be laying under it....
And this is just wrong. I have used my mag based drill a lot in my home garage and it's great. Take a peek at my build thread and you can see how I drilled my axle using it and an annular cutter on my steel fab table. Lots of other uses too. Very true.
They are great,worked at Chicago Kenworth for 16 years,stretched and shortened a lot of wheelbases over the years,just don't let it lose power,they break easy!
Had some ironworkers to leave one on site complete with bits/cutters. They didnt relaize where they had left it for 3 months. Yes I gave it back when I seen them next, but told them if they left it again they were tempting me.
I got two Jancy Sluggers. Paid about $600 for both. One works perfectly, the other is missing the magnet but came with 14 cutters and a three jaw chuck to hold standard twist drills(they won't normally use typical drill bits, just the annular style cutters. The chuck would have been an extra $100, the annular cutters are $40 or so and up). If it has cutters with it, it is worth more.
I guess the one I bought for $25 at a garage sale was a pretty good deal. I watched a guy offer $15 for it, got refused and he walked away. I bought it for the asking price only to be rebuffed by the flake who wouldn't pay the price but had to have a "bargain". People........
In some cases the "drill" part of a mag drill is replaceable and killed regularly. Milwaukee seem to hold out the best.
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