Just bought this 8 inch drill press

[Joben Magooch]

Honestly probably the biggest source of error for me is simply when the drill template gets misaligned, not put on just right.

What I have done to (mostly) eliminate that error... I put a little bit of double-sided tape on each of the corners of the face of the enclosure. Then I have an old computer monitor placed screen-up. I turn it on and the put the enclosure on the screen. Then start to line up the drill template. The backlight will project around the enclosure and through the template paper and get it lined up just right. Stick down the corners where the double-sided tape is and wrap around the sides and you're good to go. I use Scotch/3M carpet tape. It sticks nicely; the template won't move at all if you press it down well, but once you're done it peels off the enclosure without much fuss and no residue in my experience.

Then I use my ultra-cheapo Harbor Freight center punch. They work pretty nice for me, although the tip does seem to get blunted fairly quickly. But they are cheap enough (I think $4 without any coupons) that I just buy one or two a year and no worries. The old ones get left around the shop for less precise times.

Then a really small drill bit in the drill press to drill out the indents made by the center punch. Probably like 1/16 or 3/32. I have also found that if you center-punch your holes well enough then a small bit will more or less "find" the proper indent without having to worry a ton about getting everything perfectly aligned and clamped down and stuff. As long as you're pretty close to the mark the bit will center itself on your punch-indent and line up without much fuss.

Step-bit from there. Have found the same to be true there, too - once you've drilled out a small starter hole, as long as you don't clamp down the enclosure...just hold it loosely and lower your bit and it should center itself on the hole. Then you can hold it more tightly and drill your hole as needed.

I used to always use a vice and clamp everything down just so but found that a lot of the times the bit would want to "walk" or "drift" a bit on its own - if it's not perfectly lined up with the mark then once it's clamped down it's going to want to fight a bit. I've found that by NOT clamping down the enclosure I'm able to get my drill/marks lined up just as accurately (if not more so) and much more quickly.

I have now typed far more about drilling holes in pedal enclosures than I ever anticipated I would for the whole of my life.

 

[Joben Magooch]

How loud do these bench drill presses get? Closer to a cordless drill or a full-size drill press?

I think it's kind of an "it depends". I think a lot of noise comes from vibration. I have a big old and HEAVY drill press with cast iron all around. It's got a much larger motor than many of the smaller benchtop presses but it's considerably quieter as it seems like the weight serves to dampen the noise. And it's floorstanding, so it's just sending a lot of that vibration straight to the concrete floor (I've thought about getting some sort of rubber pad too, but never bothered with it yet).

With benchtop presses they weigh a lot less to begin with and a lot of the times you'll find will transmit vibrations through the bench itself. So if you have a bench with drawers or something it will probably make the drawers rattle. Or the vibration/noise will be amplified throughout the bench itself. Or it will rattle a little from not being secured to the bench really well.

Similarly I've found that a lot of the noise levels are determined by how well you secure the enclosure or whatever you're drilling. If you put it in a vice and clamp it down securely it's fairly quiet. When I do this my drill press is honestly quieter than my handheld/cordless drills in the same application (or at least I perceive it to be so...). But as described in my above post I generally don't bother clamping down the enclosure anymore and this way is a lot noisier; the metal will vibrate/rattle a good bit and that's the noisiest part of the whole operation, not the press itself.

 

[Harry Klippton]

I dont wear ear protection when I use my drill press, but I do use ear protection for pretty much everything else

 

[peccary]

My drill press is definitely quieter than my cordless.