Grizzly G7944 - 12 Speed Heavy-Duty 14" Floor Drill Press

I got this drill press about a year ago and have finally had the time to put it through its paces. It's mostly decent and runs nicely enough. The motor and belt drive are nice, the quill feeds nicely, and the chuck is decent. Drilling wood was a breeze. Drilling 3/8" clearance holes in mild steel was smooth sailing. Spot drilling with a 140 degree spot drill in that steel, however, was too much force for the machine's rigidity. I got lots of chatter doing that and ought to pick up a 120 degree spot drill. The fine details in fit and finish are what cost the stars here - there is a lot of economizing in the castings that impact function. The holes in the base are smooth bores. This means you are going to be miserable trying to level the machine on a slab with aftermarket leveling feet - with the machine standing, there's no way to hold the nuts that determine level, because they are hidden underneath the skirt of the base. If I were so equipped, I'd weld drilled and tapped blocks into the base, but I'm not - this drill press is about the fanciest metalworking equipment I have. Tapped holes from the factory would have been so much nicer. Even worse has been the table. It pretends to have t-slots - the underside of the t-slots is painted rough casting, extremely uneven, extremely thin in most places, and one of the four slots will need grinding before I can even sneak a t-nut into the slot past a bulge in the casting. I bought an expensive t-slot fixturing clamp set, and the t-slot nuts sit proud of the table - so I can't even do as much as mount a basic drill press vise onto the table with the t-slots provided. I have to C-clamp the vise onto the table, which feels bush league. At some point when I can sneak into a machine shop (or if meet a good local machinist and am feeling spendy), I'll make some low-profile t-slot nuts so I can use that fixturing stuff without so many problems. What a hassle!