More about Portable Drill Presses
Portable drills are generally small enough to be lifted, carried, and operated by one person, and are often hand-held. Portable drills may be brought to the piece which is to be machined. Portable drills are operated by mounting a drill bit into the chuck of the drill, bringing the bit into alignment with the surface to be drilled at the desired position and angle of the hole, and rotating the drill bit so as to bore into the surface.
One disadvantage inherent to portable drills is that they are imprecise; they do not reliably place the hole where it is desired to be. This is because the positioning of the drill bit during drilling is dependent upon the operator being able to hold the drill alignment steady. Often the drill bit "walks" out of alignment with the desired position of the hole while the bit is rotating, despite the best efforts of the operator. Also, the speed with which the drill progresses through the work piece is limited to how much force the operator can apply by hand.
Some conventional solutions have been attempted with mixed degrees of success. Extra handles have been added to portable drills at different locations on the drill in an attempt to help the operator maintain more control over the drill's alignment.
