What makes a drill chuck good or bad ?

mmcmdl

mmcmdl

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Other than run-out , what other considerations make a drill chuck good or bad ? Is an old Jacobs Hartford chuck any more better than a new Asian made Jacobs of the same # ? The prices of these chucks go from next to nothing upwards of $800 for unibody units . Are people out there concerned about run-out when mounting in the lathe tailstock ? What are your thoughts ? :dunno:
 
mmcmdl said:
Other than run-out , what other considerations make a drill chuck good or bad ? Is an old Jacobs Hartford chuck any more better than a new Asian made Jacobs of the same # ? The prices of these chucks go from next to nothing upwards of $800 for unibody units . Are people out there concerned about run-out when mounting in the lathe tailstock ? What are your thoughts ? :dunno:
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Easy to loosen and tighten to change out tooling. Getting a good clamp on the drill with relatively light tightening of the chuck key or the shroud. Drills are not made super accurately, and there will often be random runout with them chucked. If you need a truly accurate hole, every time, use other tooling than a drill chuck. Better chucks do the work better, faster, and with less fuss -- however, all will have runout but for the luck of the draw. Still, better chucks give noticably better results. Same goes for the drills and other tools used in the chucks. The other side of the coin: most holes do not need to be uber accurate, only fuss around when it is really necessary...
 
I have a Jacobs US-made 14N Super Chuck for my lathe and drill press, something like 5 Albrechts and 2 Rohm keyless chucks and all are pretty accurate. I would say the Albrechts are the best, then Rohm, then Jacobs. The Jacobs is used only for larger drills; I can gronk down and tighten it so the drill doesn't slip but I admit that I don't use it much. I prefer MT-shanked drills in larger sizes so I got rid of my S&D set.

I will say that the older Hartford chucks are better made than even the newer US-made ones and they are much better quality than the Chinese-made Jacobs chucks. Jacobs is selling the Chinese-made ones for nearly the same price as the older US-made ones, even though the quality is not as good.

I agree with Bob that drill chuck run out is not as important as it is with other tool holding devices but the better quality chucks will still be more accurate than the cheap junk you can buy. If you put a ground pin in the Albrecht on my drill press and run it, you cannot visually see any run out - looks like its standing still.

I think the best combination for a lathe chuck is to properly install a good arbor into a good drill chuck. I use an Albrecht arbor in my Albrecht chuck because it is the most accurate combination I could find. And besides, if an Albrecht chuck ever spins on an Albrecht arbor, Albrecht will replace them both for free, for life.
 
Mikey and Bob . I agree 100% and only ask because of all the threads stating I bought a new machine and the chuck is crap . I just wonder how they come to this conclusion .
 
Yeah, I see that a lot, too. Thing is, the guys don't really figure in the fact that a drill bit is at the end of a big stack of tolerances. How do you say its the chuck unless you sort out exactly where the run out is coming from? They also don't say how they're determining run out; are they measuring it with a pin in a running chuck? If so, that is totally invalid because it tells you nothing.

My drill press has high quality bearings throughout. It has 0.0005" TIR of static run out. The Albrecht arbor has almost no additional run out and a precision pin held in the chuck shows 0.0005" TIR of static run out. That is real and it is accurately measured using a Compac 523LA dial indicator held in a 2-arm Noga indicator stand. Yeah, a drill press with low run out. BUT then I throw a drill in it and the run out increases significantly. As Bob pointed out and as we all know, drill bits are not precision tools and do not produce precision holes.

Albrecht claims run out of 0.002" TIR, or 0.001" actual run out. That seems to be a pretty accurate claim in my experience, as long as we don't add a drill into the mix. ;)
 
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mmcmdl said:
Mikey and Bob . I agree 100% and only ask because of all the threads stating I bought a new machine and the chuck is crap . I just wonder how they come to this conclusion .
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I had a crap chuck that came with my Jet drill press. I have no idea what the TIR was because I never measured it, but
after putting up with it for a number of years I finally binned it and replaced it with a quality chuck. It's pretty obvious
when you try to use a really bad chuck: you can't drill accurate holes. Night and day difference.
 
2 things that are important are consistent ease of opening and closing jaws and ability to rebuild chuck if needed.
 
I have a number of chucks in the shop. The newest is probably 25 years old or older. The oldest are close to 100 years old. I only have 4 brand names, Jacobs, Albrecht, Cushman, and Golden Goose., The Cushman's are the oldest in that they were inherited from my wife's grandfather. I have both the keyed and keyless models. The most prolific are the Jacobs, there are probably a dozen or more, all of which are the keyed models. They range in age from 60+ years old to about 30 years old. I have only 1 Albrecht, and that's a keyless model, probably from the 1980's. The newest of the bunch are Golden Goose. They were made in Taiwan in the late 1980's. The Golden Goose were the least expensive at less than $100.00 per copy

All seem to work well. The oldest have about .002 runout with the newest (Albrecht and Golden Goose having ales than .001 runout. All the chucks are ball bearing models which minimizes the torque needed to properly tighten a drill. It also minimizes the amount of wear done to the key holes in the body, the scroll, and the key itself.

I expected the quality of the Albrecht, Cushman's, and Jacobs in that they were all in the neighborhood of $300.00 to $400.00 new. The rebuild kits for the Jacobs N18's still cost a little less than $200.00 today. One of the clues as to whether or not a chuck is a higher quality model is the availability of a rebuild kit. Lower price chucks are generally considered a consumable, and therefore not rebuildable.

The quality of the Golden Goose chucks were a pleasant surprise. At that price point 30 years ago I was expecting much less. Unfortunately these chucks are no longer made. In the late 1990's a company from mainland China started counterfeiting them, and were turning out far inferior products. The company from Taiwan that was originally building them decided to stop production rather than compete with the counterfeits, and try to explain why there was such a difference in quality.

There are still some of the original Golden Goose chucks available from vendors and on eBay. However I would be very cautious when looking for one. If you can find one new in the box with a production date older than 1990 you can be relatively assured it's from the original manufacturer. The older packaging was a black and red box like this:

www.ebay.com

Golden Goose Drill Chuck Cap 13 M/m - #33jt Mount With Key for sale online | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for Golden Goose Drill Chuck Cap 13 M/m - #33jt Mount With Key at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!
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The newer packaging is a yellow and green box. These are the ones of suspicious quality.

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The issue I’ve had with the crappy chuck that came with my PM932 isn’t runout, which I haven’t even checked. The problem is that it won’t hold even moderate size drill bits without slippage.
 
I've got a 5/8 capacity Albreght going out tomorrow . :big grin:
 
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