This is a review of my Clarke CDP 5DD drilling milling machine, which I bought from Machine Mart in the UK.

This is a budget, small, single-phase, 5 speed machine with a drilling capacity up to 13mm. It cost about £30. I bought it so that I would not continually have to be changing my milling machine over to drilling operations, thus saving considerable amounts of time. For detailed technical specifications, see the Machine Mart website.

Link to Machine Mart, UK.

I bought the machine for use in my model engineering activities. I have been pleased with the machine and find it easy to use. I would be happy to recommend the machine to other home-workshop users. For the price, it does everything asked of it. The good and bad points are shown below.

Good Points

Reasonable quality for the price. Does the job, and is perfectly adequate for light drilling operations.

Accuracy is adequate.

Adjusting the spindle speed is reasonably quick and easy – just change the V-belt over.

The angle of the drilling table can be adjusted to at least +/- 45 degrees.

The machine is fitted with a depth stop.

Machine Mart is a good source of cheap, reasonable quality, tools.

Bad Points

The pulley cover rattles loudly. I need to fit some rubber pads to quieten it.

The pulley cover is secured with a screw. It is fiddly to remove – I would like to upgrade to a quick release catch.