Pro's & Con's on mill chuck, please

[Ringo]

I need a drill chuck for my little mill, 6x26 mill, R8 collet.
I tried unsucessfully to derust & cleanup a couple old Jacobs chucks.
Now I'm looking at just outlay some money and start over.
Then the thought occurred to me to get one of those small 3-jaw lathe chuck, the little 3" 3-jaw small lathe chuck.
What would be the pro's & con's of doing this instead of a Jacobs?
looks to me like the little lathe chuck will close down to a .080 drill bit.

something like this?
https://littlemachineshop.com/produc...ProductID=1187

[old mart]

The size would get in the way for many jobs. Also, you would have to add the cost of adapting it to R8. If I was going to drill small holes as well as large, then having 2 ordinary chucks would be best, a 3/8", 10mm and a larger 5/8" , 16mm. Get an R8 arbor for tanged MT2 and drill chucks with MT2 fittings. MT2 is a common lathe tailstock size for smaller lathes too.

[Tim The Grim]

The jaws are going to extend out past the od of the chuck with the larger drills. That creates a serious safety issue and could grab you into it.


if you want a good keyless chuck that’s priced between the cheap Chinese and the pricey Albrechts , I have had great success for 20+ years with a Rohm Supra. About $75 on Amazon + an adapter.

[BCRider]

Also I believe that the Jacobs chucks tend to be more consistently centered than a regular scroll chuck And I think you'll find that the gripping strength is better with the Jacobs.

[dalee100]

Hi,

Yeah, size is going to be an issue, it's way too big. And three jaw lathe chucks are mostly not celebrated for their accuracy either. Runnout is going to be a big issue leading to many a broken drill.

I've never been satisfied with just "one drill chuck does all". I have always owned a 1/2" chuck and a smaller 1/4" chuck. If you are picky or drill a good number of >1/4" holes, then you really need that smaller chuck. And try to buy a little runout as you can afford for that 1/4" chuck. Those #80 drills will thank you.......

[RWO]

If you are financially challenged, find a decent Albrecht keyless chuck with R8 integral shank on ebay and you are done. If the runout is excessive, you can buy all the rebuild parts on-line or send it back to Albrecht for rebuild.
Here's one now: https://www.ebay.com/itm/ALBRECHT-KE...sAAOSw0TheENig No doubt there are others.

RWO

[RB211]

Avoid the keyless chucks

[pinstripe]

Avoid the keyless chucks

Are you still trying to separate yours from the holesaw?

[wierdscience]

I have two chucks for my mill, one is a 1/4" keyless and the other is a 5/8 keyless. Both are on straight shank mounts that I cut off leaving them 1" long. The shorter length makes tool changes easier and the R-8 does it's gripping in the first inch of the taper anyway.

An alternative to Jacobs and Albrecht is LFA- http://www.lfachucks.com/

[RB211]

Are you still trying to separate yours from the holesaw?

Two big pipe wrenches took care of that!

[Paul Alciatore]

I have two chucks for my mill: a 1/2", no name Chinese chuck that came with the mill and a 1/4" BB Jacobs brand. The Jacobs chuck will grip all the drill bits down to the #60 and probably a few that are even smaller. The Chinese chuck is surprisingly good for a no name chuck. It is not very often that I need to use drills smaller than the #60, but in those instances I set my Unimat up as a drill press/mill and use the chuck that came with it. It will grip bits down to about #75.

I do not feel that I need any additional chucks for either machine.

Many small milling cutters and drills are made with a 1/8" shank. That seems to be one method that many use to address the problem of holding small drill bits. They are widely used in the printed circuit board industry and are referred to as circuit board drills.

[A.K. Boomer]

You should get both - they both are so handy for all kinds of things but two totally different birds - one is actually better as material holding not tooling - the smaller one is mostly tool holding only, probably the first thing you should buy and then as you expand get the other - unless you have a small lathe then just get the small drill size chuck

[BCRider]

I feel that a single chuck to do it all is a bit of a dream. And it seems as the others feel the same. I'm also a bit surprised that your mill did not come with a drill chuck on an R8 arbor. That seems like it's pretty typically standard. Or did you get it used with no extras?

[A.K. Boomer]

The size would get in the way for many jobs. Also, you would have to add the cost of adapting it to R8.

My little 3 jaw came with an R-8 and it's a flanged hub that removes with 3 allens, the great thing is that you just make another flange that then connects to your rotary table and then the chuck can hold rounds on the RT, it's come in handy for so many things --- most of my work is smaller stuff so really covers allot of what I do...

[Ringo]

my mill was used with no extras except for some rusty collets......
it's a decent mill, just has no tooling, and has no goodies like power feeds, DRO, or anything