Thanks, Paul, I appreciate the feedback. I'm not disagreeing with anything you've mentioned. I agree wood tears. The answer I tried to prove in the video is that even at very slow speeds that end result can be achieved. I've done a million things with wood in the last 3 years with all sorts of exotic woods from around the world. It was actually about 4 years ago that I started working with metal and switched to the lowest speed because of the heat. Out of laziness, I never switched it back. What I found, in those 3 years (and you can go to both my Make Things video account as well as my Let's Make Things and see a lot of my exotic projects) is that at 300RPM's, I'm able to do everything that needs to be done.

To sum this up, I guess I'm not disagreeing with you to the nature of wood, I'm disagreeing with the speed needed. I've also shown that with a rusty bit with very little sharpness to it it can achieve the same results, if you allow the drill bit to cut instead of trying to wedge the bit into the wood as fast as you can. This is personal experience that I've dealt with, not some idea that I came up with a week ago.

Of course, maybe there's a little magic in my ridgid drill press that's not present in other drill presses, as this is the only large drill press I have ever owned.

I'm not suggesting that these manufactures are trying to rip us off. Maybe 50 years ago it was necessary to use these types of speeds due to the way drill bits were cut back then...but now, it hardly matters. I think a clean hole can be had easily at a minimum speed of 300RPM, so long as you're willing to let the press do its thing and the bit do its thing.

Thanks for responding!