What type is drill Chuck arbor is best?

M

Mikeyc66

H-M Supporter - Gold Member
H-M Supporter Gold Member
Joined
May 10, 2022
Messages
14
I know that this is gonna be a use specific question but pass some knowledge on to a newbie. I have been slowing cleaning, lubing and general maintenance stuff on a few Jacob's drill chucks. I have a 2MT drill press (which is worth noting but not a big variable) the tailstock of my lathe is 2MT, and my Mill uses R8. I have a couple of nice #34 chucks each with a 2MT arbor. Then I have 2 14N, a 16N and a soon to arrive 18N Super chucks. These are in addition to a keyless Chuck for both the mill and the drill press. The drill press being an Amazon special and the mill being a nicer albeit Chinese R8 unit. The question is, what type of arbor would serve me best. Having 2 of the 14N’s I plan for one 2MT and one R8. For the 16N and 18N would I be better served doing 2MT and then getting an R8 to 2MT sleeve or should go with R8? My lathe is a 10x24 hobby lathe so I do believe it will handle a big 3/4 shank drill bit. Also on in opposition to that my mill is an 8x30 knee mill and spindle to table height is a limitation. Would I gain anything by using a straight shank and a collet? That would make them unusable in the lathe. Would it be better to do the 2MT? Would that cause additional problems with the mill?

I literally have zero experience in machining. It seemed intriguing so I am running down the rabbit hole and trying to learn as much as I can. I say this because I have no prior experience, notions, or prejudices to steer me any one direction and I am not obviously making high tolerance items. I just want to squeeze the best performance to capability balance out of what I have.
 
It’s always bet to minimize stick-out, and unless the mill is decent size knee mill you’ll use up a lot of headroom using an R8/MT2 combination.

That said, the R8 arbor will not slip in the mill spindle, and depending on the spindles on the drill press & lathe (whether or not they accept an arbor with a tang) they won’t slip either.
 
I initially set up for #2 Morse and R8. Recently I decided to switch to #3 Morse and R8, because I no longer have #2 size machines.

I do not use R8 to taper adapters. I only use shanks in the mill that engage the draw bar. The R8 chucks are dedicated to the mill, which is why there are only two of them. All the others are #3 or #4 Morse. The #4 is dedicated to the lathe.

That leaves the #3, which is my workhorse. It's the default shank for most of my work, fits the lathe with a #3-4 or #3-5 sleeve (okay with me for tapers) and drill press(es) directly.

I have not found a way to make interchange universal, unfortunately. In the end, I just collected more chucks until I had "enough".

I should add that I only use chucks in the mill when I don't have a collet or when I am being extraordinarily lazy.
 
I prefer straight shank, cut in half, in a collet on the mill. Less cranking of the knee. Shank should be larger than the capacity of the chuck.

20220622_154441.jpg

According to Albrecht, drills larger than the capacity of the chuck should not be held in the chuck. In other words, use a collet for those S&D drills, save the shanks, spare the chuck.
 
I have an R8 to MT2 shank on my small Wohlhaupter B/F head . I always thought about it falling off . Now , I can't get it off !
 
One thing to consider is your mill drawbar. I've discovered on my mill the drawbar is too long to work with the R8 > JT3 adapter so if I want to use the chuck I have a shorter (adjustable) drawbar is needed.

John
 
They also make threaded taper adaptors, so potentially you could just get a few of those (or even make some) and match them to fit your chucks. The adaptors being cheaper than the chucks.

I don't have any R8 so not sure how easy these adaptors are to find in that taper, but I have a couple different sizes of threaded MT adaptors which allows me to share some of the tail stock tooling between my lathes. My mill also uses MT2 so some will also carry over to the mill.
 
MrWhoopee said:
According to Albrecht, drills larger than the capacity of the chuck should not be held in the chuck. In other words, use a collet for those S&D drills, save the shanks, spare the chuck.
Click to expand...
For me, on the S & D drills, I prefer to use a chuck so as to keep from shearing off my alignment pin and scoring my R8 taper. If it slips in the chuck, it usually only hurts the drill shank. Just my preference.
 
Thanks for the input. Now a follow up question. Is there any real difference in stick out between a stub shank and collet or a dedicated R8 drill chuck? Having never done it is seems like there would be no real difference. Of course we don’t know what we don’t know.

As for the discussion about S&D drills, this is interesting. I am very new to these type of drills as well so those are good nuggets of knowledge for me. I like the idea of having slippage at the drill chuck. Again, a novice prospective, to be generous.
 
OTmachine said:
For me, on the S & D drills, I prefer to use a chuck so as to keep from shearing off my alignment pin and scoring my R8 taper. If it slips in the chuck, it usually only hurts the drill shank. Just my preference.
Click to expand...
I just remove the alignment pin. It is unneccesary and a potential problem when it does shear off.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top