Clarke CDS3 Drill Stand with Vice, Adjustable Depth Stop, for 43mm & 38mm Collar Diameter Hand-Held Electric Drills - Drill Not Included

I've been wanting a pillar drill for ages but I would not spend the money and did not have the space!I kept letting projects pass because I could not drill holes accurately with my hand power drill.Finally I bit the bullet and bought one of these and it worked fantastically.Let me be blunt - it is not perfect - but it is plenty good enough.I drilled 6 16mm parallel holes through a 125mm thick piece of wood and they all lined up perfectly with the 16mm holes I needed them to!It even includes a handy vice - what more could I ask?Sure there's a little wobble but once the drill bites it settles down.I wish I'd bought one years ago!

Good stand and the vice is ok for the price. Hight setting is fiddly having to use allan key. Drill wobbles a bit when starting.

It’s okay but not perfect.Pros:It’s not bad, you can mount the drill, drill almost accurate 90 degrees vertical holes. I had a piece that required 6 identical pieces to be drilled and then stacked and glued together. I couldn’t do this before and the reason for buying the stand. I was able to achieve this and insert my linear bearing both ends and line up.. however, if you mixup the order of the pieces and glue them together they almost line up, it works but the rod was very tight to move, when it shouldn’t be. In the right order it was perfect. This says to me the drill wasn’t perfectly 90 degrees, more like 87 or something. So for most people accurate enough?It’s easy to put together. It feels strong, robust (except for one issue with a screw shearing). Easy to use!Cons:The clamp that holds the drill doesn’t hold the drill well enough. When tightening it starts to move it off 90 degrees from the work. The reducer ring it too big, so can’t use that, I had some heat shrink grip that I added to the drill and that widened it slightly, this helped a lot, but not perfect.Second, the screw that I used to adjust the height of the drill sheared off on the same day of purchase which rendered it useless. I purchased a replacement M6 screw with a lever so I could get rid of the Allen key, which is annoying to always have to find.I also found the hole in the base wasn’t aligned with the drill clamp so it’s always just off which means the drill bit hits the metal stand when using larger bits. I have to use an off-cut of wood to lift the work piece up a bit, annoying as it’s hard to secure the work piece properly.

Arrived promptly, easy to put together and sturdy.

It is worthless rubbish because it does not provide rigidity. There is nearly 1cm of loose lateral movement of a drill bit at the workpiece because of sloppiness in the construction of the moving drill carrier - the very thing that a drill stand should be designed to prevent. Because of the wobbly way the carrier is constructed, the amount of loose lateral movement of the drill bit increases as the drill is lowered. The only thing to stop this rotation around the column is the lowering lever but this cannot be tightened up enough to eliminate the rotation. The product is missing a keyway on the column to prevent rotation of the carrier around the column. I can drill more steadily, and accurately, by hand, than with this product. The review process will not allow me to allocate a deserved zero star rating

I studied all the reviews before buying one. I expected to have to carry out the ingenious modication using a 15mm copper end cap because there is visible side play due to the 10mm guide rod being too loose a fit in the top of the housing (the lower end is clamped after setting the depth). I decided to try it as received in both wood and 3mm thick aluminium. I had no problem with either. I did not use the vice for these tests. I simply marked a cross on the wood and carefully brought the drill point down onto it. With the aluminium, I centre punched a marker and again carefully brought the drill point down onto it. Both were just as easy as using my old black & decker drill stand (which clamps the rear end of my black and decker drill). Someone has claimed that a hole drilled in aluminium would have a significantly bigger diameter than the drill bit so I checked that the hole in the aluminium was not bigger than expected by removing the HSS bit from the drill and pushing it into the hole. It was a perfect fit with no play. Having made these tests, I will not bother making the modification unless I find good reason. So far this product seems excellent value for money. I shall try twisting the short end of the hex key to avoid excess tightening of the various adjustments.

The changing of kitchen cabinet handles required new holes to be drilled. As I am not great at drilling perpendicular holes, I researched a tool that would help me in drilling numerous holes. This drill stand was good value, easy to assemble and made drilling the holes easier and faster than drilling by eye. The drill holder does move slightly after alignment but its accuracy was adequate for the required job.