I got to admit, I am not a machinist. Good woodworker and adequate welder, but not a machinist. I am looking at the Fireball Drill Press table and it comes with choices of tolerance. In this case is “tolerance” the degree of flatness of the table, the space between the ⅝" holes, the hole diameters themselves, or something else entirely? Simple answer please for the “non-machinist.” Thanks !
In this instance it’s a flatness tolerance. I would go with the .011-15 if you going to use it on a drill press. What the tolerance means is the highest point to the lowest.
That’s what I thought, but my ME son argued with me, saying ALL the specs had tolerances and it wasn’t necessarily the flatness. His preference was to have tight tolerances for the hole positioning and peg fit. Yup, it will go on a big drill press, and I haven’t done the bearings in years, so my application probably couldn’t care.