Accurate/precise R8 keyless chuck?

I've been very happy with the one piece Llambrich chuck and R8 arbor I bought a few years ago on eBay. They promise .0006" run out or less. Mine meets that spec with room to spare!

 
I bought a PM keyless chuck off e-bay a while back, and so far am very happy with it. It has an R8 shank and very little runout... I think it was around $70...

-Bear
 
I own several Albrechts, and never had a drill bit slip, spin or get stuck. Those problems stem from oil getting in the chuck or pushing the drill bit up too far into the chuck. If buying a used Albrecht from Ebay, it may be a good idea to disassemble it, clean it and lubricate it properly, only where it needs to be. Mikey wrote a great article on refurbing Albrecht drill chucks.

I;ve heard good things about the Glacern keyless, if you decide to look at those, and the Llambrich and Roehm. I would consider a NOS Roehm keyless, if you can find one in good shape, or Albrecht. Lot's of them on Ebay. I just saw 3 brand new 0-13mm and 3-16mm Albrechts sell for $160 each on Ebay.

Accurate? I would say only Albrecht, Roehm and possibly Llambrich.
 
Keyless chucks are very long. That really hurts on a small mill. I use ER collets because they are accurate, and more importantly, they allow you to grip on the flute of the drill bit. This way you can use a 1/2" drill with only 1" sticking out if that suits your needs.
 
Ugh. You're going to have problems gripping on the drill flutes. Decent drills are relieved such that there's only a small ridge at the nominal diameter at one edge of the flute. The rest of the circumference is ground to a smaller diameter so it doesn't bind up in the hole.

Because of this, if you try using a collet to grip a drill on the flutes, you'll either get very poor contact or you will damage the collet.

Get yourself a set of stub length drills—they are a huge improvement for most tasks.

Sent from my Pixel XL using Tapatalk
 
I know what you mean. It's definitely not ideal, it's a compromise. You should see my mill. It's VERY much a collection of compromises. But I do what I can with what I have.

Mill Setup.jpg
 
HellawellCustoms said:
Anyone know of a half decent keyless chuck with an r8 for my mini mill? I've heard the ones that grizzly sell have run out. My first thought was to buy from precision Mathews where I got my mill. It looks like it's well made and precision made. However I'm Canadian and the exchange rate already sucks and it's 50$ to ship. Is there another source maybe in Canada? Not looking for something cheap but at the same time not looking to pay half the price of the item in shipping.
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I bought the ultra precision chuck with my mill, I like it for drilling and edge finding task, the runout on it is as advertised by PM. (For my next statement please do not throw stones) I was using a large drill press to cut small parts, I had installed 3 axis DRO's on it and had issues with its Jacob's chuck run out so I bought a MT3 ER32 collet chuck and an inexpensive set (25 piece) of ER32 collects, the runout on those is infinitely less than the chuck was. Now I have a PM940V and I have purchased an R8 x ER32 collet chuck which uses my previously purchased collects and it still has less runout than the precision chuck.
 
Mjohnson said:
Keyless chucks are very long. That really hurts on a small mill. I use ER collets because they are accurate, and more importantly, they allow you to grip on the flute of the drill bit. This way you can use a 1/2" drill with only 1" sticking out if that suits your needs.
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I've since switched to a Bridgeport clone, but this is what made the collet chuck live on the WrongFu-45. Z travel is at a precious premium on a mini-mill. Add a large vise (because, "huh! huh! More POWER"), on a swivel base, then add a keyless chuck with a 1/2" drill, and you might be able to slip a coupon of sheet stock in there.

Get a full set of the metric size collets (step up every mm) and you have a complete holding system from just above micro-drills to larger than what a mini-mill can really handle. Tool changes are slower, but the collet will hold drills, end mills, taps and even stock, and all more accurately and securely than any reasonably priced chuck. A mini-muffin pan from Walmart cooking section keeps them all arrange nicely and handy.
 
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