Bosch PBD 40 Workshop Bench Pillar Drill

Shiuming 20/06/2013 00:28:51

After seemingly endless research and reading a lot of mixed reviews on this particular drill, i bit the bullet as i needed a solution quickly and the overall concept appealed to me. first of all it was much cheaper than anywhere else, the ordering process and delivery were very straightforward and pleasant. in the box, the product is nicely presented and i was able to set it up and start using it immediately without reading the instructions. So far i have not bothered to make use of the electronic depth guage, still preferring to mark a depth stop on the bit with some coloured tape. the laser is a gimmick, the lines simply aren't fine enough and you should always bring the bit down to the workpiece to align and mark it. Likewise the two white led lights only light the workpiece from one side, not good if the workpiece is not totally flat and they are also not very bright. it has a röhm chuck, which at close inspection appears to be much more precisely made than the jacobs 4000 chuck on my bosch psb 850-2 re and pretty much every chuck on a hand held drill i've seen in the consumer-oriented market. The jaws have a more sharply machined appearance and close together perfectly on my unit. By eye, the trueness appears better too. I've lost enormous amounts of sleep reading about chuck wobble on drills but one thing i have recently discovered is that none of my drill bits are perfectly straight either. Simply rolling them on a flat surface is not enough to tell, as most of them are off by a tiny amount that won't be noticed until trying to drill a precise hole. that brings me to the next point i found of concern, namely complaints of lateral play. Whether by design or not, it probably helps more than it hinders, given my experience of bits never being perfectly straight either. If there was no lateral movement at all, smaller bits would snap sooner than later.

Mr 13/05/2013 07:34:30

First class tool a must have in any work shop or diy what more can i say

Gordon 16/04/2013 22:54:37

I bought this drill because i need to drill accurate bolt holes in my model aircraft propellers amonst other things. When the drill arrived the bosch seal on the box had been broken and i was not happy with the way the drill was packed so i requested a replacement. This took another week to arrive and once again the bosch seal had been broken but the drill and packaging looked ok so i accepted it. The drill works fine however the laser pointer is not accurate as the alignment to the drill point goes off by a few millimeters at the workpiece. It works ok as a rough guide though. I particularly like the clamp which works great for everything i have drilled up to now. All things considered i am happy with the bench drill, it does have a lot going for it and i would recommend it but i do think it is overpriced.

Susan 27/02/2013 09:22:58

I bought this to replace my pillar drill. It seems a good choice for me as most of the holes I drill are in long flat pieces of timber which is nigh on impossible to do on my pillar drill. I have mounted the pbd40 next to my compound mitre saw on a metabo extending work stand so that the base of it is level with that of the compound saw. As far as I can find this is the only bench drill where the head comes down to the work piece and for the work I do it seems very satisfactory. Features wise the variable speed is excellent though you should note that you do not set the speed to a value rather it tells you what speed you have set, by turning the knob on the front, when you actually start it up. It is also very easy to work the depth feature. I was concerned about the size of the machine but there is plenty of clearance for drilling into even quite a large piece of timber if you wind the head up to the top. The weight is just about manageable for me (over 50 female) to move around the workshop and I dont think it will prove too heavy and bow the work stand as it is a similar weight to the mitre saw. The chuck is a bit unusual or is this a standard bosch feature. I dont know. This is the first Bosch machine in my workshop. You tighten it by hand and turn a locking ring but I am sure I will get used to that and it seems to hold the drill bit securely and accurately. I like the simple but practical parallel bar which is easy to move and has a flat upright which means you can clamp to it in addition to using the hold down clamp. The reason I gave it a lower value for money is that it is quite noisy and I would have thought for the money this could be better. As far as accuracy is concerned, it seems fine for my purposes such as using forstner bits to mount hinges on cabinet doors. Hope that helps folks.

David 08/11/2012 14:20:23

Works well, a little noisy. throat could be bigger. up to usual bosch standard.

Richrat 09/07/2016 20:12:58

A mistake buy..No use for precision modelling...Too much 0.7mm main shaft sideplay in bearings. This was an enormous design shortsightedness. When using small drills the play error can be significant as to drill off the center line. This isn't the first Bosch i've given bad notes for, perhaps the fact that they are produced in china has alot to answer for the bad quality control; and it's poor. Sorry Bosch, my old ital pillar drill scores way better.