Benchtop drill press
Drill presses come in several different form factors. You can get a drill guide that lets you attach your hand drill to guide rods. You can also get a drill press stand without a motor or chuck. Instead, you clamp your own hand drill into it. Both of these options are cheaper and will serve in a pinch, but in no way will they replace the real thing. Most beginners would be better served with a benchtop drill press. These smaller tools usually have all the features of the big floor models but are small enough to fit on a workbench.
Floor Model Drill press
The floor models are the big boys. These powerhouses will drill holes in just about anything without the bit stalling. They will drill holes that can be very dangerous or impossible to drill by hand. Floor models have bigger motors and larger chucks for drilling larger holes. They have a much bigger throat clearance than bench models so they will drill to the center of larger material.
Radial Drill Press
A radial drill press has a horizontal column in addition to a vertical column. This lets you drill to the center of much larger workpieces, as much as 34-inches for some small benchtop models. They are rather expensive and take up a lot of space. Always bolt down these top-heavy tools so they don’t tip over. The advantage though is that the column almost never gets in your way, so you can put all sorts of things in a radial drill press you normally cannot.
