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Warning: That $180 magnetic drill press base let me down on a vertical pipe
Last Tuesday I was fitting a 6 inch nozzle on a tank wall at a plant outside Gary, Indiana. The magnet felt strong on the bench, but on that curved surface it slid about 2 inches when I hit the first cut. Cost me a whole afternoon and a ruined carbide hole saw. I'm back to using a chain vise and a hand drill for anything not perfectly flat. Anyone else found a base that actually holds on round shells without welding a tab on?
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campbell.nora1mo ago
That curved shell is the whole problem, the magnet only grabs maybe 20 percent of its face on a 6 inch pipe. I ran into the same thing on a 48 inch header and what saved me was a wrap chain with a ratchet binder, the kind you'd use for tie downs. You loop it around the pipe, hook it to the base of the drill, and crank it down until the slack is gone. The chain takes the side load so the magnet just keeps the drill from tipping. Takes about two minutes to set up and it works on any size round. One tip, put a scrap of rubber under the chain where it crosses the weld seam so it don't slip on you.
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