World's BEST Drill Press Value - The WEN 4214

hey what's going on everyone today we're looking at what might be the best value in the drill-press marketplace the when 42-14 obviously one can get a much better unit but you'll have to spend a lot more to do so as per usual we'll get her unboxed assembled and then see how she works the first thing we see upon folding back the cardboard is the cast iron base like most pieces it is protected by a plastic bag next out is our cast iron work table and small bag of hardware we'll take a look at that in just a moment underneath those pieces we find the chuck in its own box the steel column and work table bracket are partially assembled and the power head itself will remain sheath for a couple of minutes until we're ready for it up top at this point if you haven't done so you'll want to go ahead and grab yourself a pair of disposable gloves as I found in the few moments it took me to unbox just about everything is covered and what I assume is protective grease or maybe some type of cosmoline back at our work table and we could take a quick look at the included hardware the rack and pinion or table height handle is out first followed by the Chuck removal tool three quill handles speed adjustment handle and some fasteners assembly starts with the attachment of the column to the base you'll need a 16 millimeter wrench socket or something adjustable installing four bolts completes this task next up is the attachment of the handle that connects you to the tables rack and pinion height adjustment system it's held in place where the set screw threaded into plastic I'm not a fan of this arrangement call me old-school but I still believe all machine threads should be in metal then again plastic does protect NFL players skulls and those are a lot more valuable than the drill press so what do I know the work table goes on next it's secured by a pivoted bolt and a threaded cast iron collar a little awkward to get to but should work well the table height is locked in much the same manner though truthfully I'm a little worried cast iron has very poor ductility so if one is frequently changing the table height and this tightening and loosening this connection the threads may lead to some premature wear the work support roller is held in place by two thumb screws the power head containing the motor transmission quill and most everything else goes on next it just slips on top of the hollow steel column and is held in place by a single set screw I suppose I would have liked to have seen a slightly more robust fastening method but oh well handles for the quill and speed are the last things to go on pretty straightforward really just screw them on now that it's assembled we can take a closer look and see that although sturdy it is a little rough around the edges though it doesn't really affect performance and it looks good from a distance it's definitely no thing of beauty up close before installing the Chuck I thought I'd take a quick run out measurement as we can see here the dial indicator is barely moving like it's hard to tell I'm even turning the spindle if we look really close we can see less than one thousandth of an inch I'm no machinist but to my eyes that's pretty good the drill accepts an empty two Arbor off-camera I did the standard acetone wipe down to take off any manufacturing grease and or machine debris I then went ahead and tapped it in with my rubber mallet I then broke out my dial indicator again this time with less than stellar results here measuring on the smooth portion of a Forstner bit just below the jaws we ended up with eight to nine thousandths of total indicated run out again no machinist but that seems quite high the people that do this for a living and talked about it on the forums say that for casual home or woodworking use you want to shoot for under five so the when 42-14 stock chuck misses that mark because of this disappointing performance and because i like buying toys for my toys i went ahead and picked up an aftermarket Kahless Chuck this one is from Excel and also includes an aftermarket Arbor it's definitely pretty cheap I paid about $30 and at that price I think it's pretty nice I considered buying one in the $100 price range but to me that felt like throwing $2,000 rims on my $4,000 Civic so that was a no-go firing up the gauge once again and were now down to four thousandths about a 50% improvement over the stock Chuck to me that's not just good it's good enough plus I think it looks pretty cool and having it means I don't need to deal with Chuck keys I'll place an Amazon link to this exact one in the description below it is an associate link for which the channel will earn a small commission use is greatly appreciated before actually using the win 42-14 we've got a couple adjustment areas out of the box the work table is just ever so slightly out of square to adjust use an 18 millimeter wrench on the retaining bolt underneath I didn't get mine real loose just enough so a few taps from the mallet would move it next up I wanted to take a look at the accuracy of the laser because the bit actually tends to block the lines as you approach the workpiece I made a small mark at the center of the crosshairs here we can see that as the tip approaches the hole it's lined up perfectly so no adjustments necessary here the work light is quite clutch it's operated via a switch next to the one that operates the laser it's a pleasing daylight LED that appears to be an off-the-shelf variety that's good because it means that if it ever burns out replacements should be cheap spinning er up and it sounds a little well clunky if you've ever been around a well-maintained industrial milling machine you know the ones that make a sound so smooth that it triggers feelings normally reserved for the opposite sex well the when is nothing like that but it does get work done and for under $300 I don't think there's too much room to complain since we're on the topic let's talk about this units infinitely variable speed for a second it's kind of this product standout feature and generally works quite well the digital readout is clear and since I have no evidence to the contrary I'm going to assume that it's accurate the system works by varying the distance between two conical pulleys it's actually quite clever and truth being told even if it somehow doesn't hold up or results in premature wear I'd still prefer it over the older system of manually positioned belts the depth gauge is just a standard two nut affair that works adequately mine have vibrated loose on a few occasions which is a very common problem with this setup I've read that polishing the mating surfaces can help but have never tried this on the power front I feel that things are adequate to decent dropping it down to about 600 rpm and we've got no problem turning a one and a quarter inch Forstner bit in this piece of scrap pine [Music] running a 1/4 inch twist bit through some mild steel at 1000 RPM is also effortless now there were a couple of minor items that I wasn't sure were a problem or not first the motor made an unfamiliar clicking sound whenever it was powering down second there appeared to be an abnormal amount of belt dust under the hood so I went ahead and sent when tech support an email which was completely ignored about a week went by and I decided to just give them a call after a 30-minute hold I was finally connected to an agent I won't subject anyone to the actual boring phone call but he was actually quite knowledgeable in my initial email I had included a video demonstrating the two potential problems he let me know the clicking sound heard when powering down was normal and on recent units they had changed motor suppliers he even had a 42-14 on his end that he was able to power up and demonstrate that it too made the same noise he also indicated that belt wear is slightly accelerated on variable speed systems but that one should still last years on a normal homeowner workload based solely off his surprising expertise regarding the motors clutch I tended to believe him overall I'm very happy with the 142 14 drill press and at under $300 I believed it to be a good value assembly is easy if not a bit messy fit and finish are rather poor as is the accuracy of the stock chuck the variable speed system works very well and like I said earlier I couldn't imagine going back to manually position of belts tech support from when although tough to get a hold of was really quite good I've talked with some support reps in the past who seemed to know less about their products than a two-second Google search would reveal luckily that's not the case here I'd call this product a winner okay that should about do it for today if you found any of this useful a lecture or sub would be appreciated if not go ahead and hit that thumbs down button okay take care [Music] Oh

Channel: Aaron's Test Lab

Views: 89,893

Rating: 4.8780127 out of 5

Keywords: WEN 4214 Review, WEN 4214 aftermarket chuck, WEN 4214 replacement chuck, WEN vs Jet, WEN vs Shop Fox, WEN vs Porter Cable, WEN vs Rikon, WEN vs Harbor Freight, WEN vs Skil, WEN vs Ryobi

Id: ceSqsWlCe24

Length: 11min 4sec (664 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 16 2020