straight shank vs. dedicated shank milling tools

[v860rich]

I found that you can't "torque" the draw bar down, once I figured out how tight I needed to make it, and not have ant tooling loosen up, I have not had a problem.
It really tales a lot less tightening than one might think.
Also I have removed the pin from my quill so there is no assist from it, just the torque fron the p/drawbar.

THANX RICH

[Toolguy]

The way to get the tooling to pop out is have a captive drawbar. By having a means of keeping the top from going up, the tooling must go down. With manual or powered drawbar, this pushes the tool out of the taper when the drawbar is unscrewed. No hammering required.

[Doozer]

Having drill chucks on a 5/8" straight shank is just fine.
I might use a 3/4" shank for slit saw arbors and shell
mills. A straight shank in a collet is a better fuse than
binding up and ruining a R-8 adapter. OK to have a
boring head on a straight shank too. It is OCD tendencies
that make one transfixed on having a taper arbor.
Get over it and see how fine straight shank tooling works.
It is not a 50 flange taper for all sakes.

--Doozer

[bandsawguy]

I use a ratcheting box end wrench on mine. Seems to work well and 90% of the time I can just tap the end of the drawbar with the side of the wrench and it pops free.

[dalee100]

Having drill chucks on a 5/8" straight shank is just fine.
I might use a 3/4" shank for slit saw arbors and shell
mills. A straight shank in a collet is a better fuse than
binding up and ruining a R-8 adapter. OK to have a
boring head on a straight shank too. It is OCD tendencies
that make one transfixed on having a taper arbor.
Get over it and see how fine straight shank tooling works.
It is not a 50 flange taper for all sakes.

--Doozer

Hi,

Yep +1. Not to mention that a Bridgeport sized machine doesn't have enough where-with-all to even get that hard on straight shanked tools. The machine itself will start hopping around long before you will get enough deflection from the tool to be worried about.

Save some money, buy cheaper straight shanks.

dalee

[Paul Alciatore]

I'd like to see that. Can you post a photo?

My power draw bar is a butterfly impact afixed atop the drawbar with a spring to lift it when not in use.
I have never had to tap the drawbar since I installed the impact!!!

THANX RICH

[tyrone shewlaces]

Since budget is such a significant concern for the O.P., then I'd say go for a straight-shank cutter simply because if you get a different mill later with a different spindle taper, you can still use it.