My Drill Chuck Keeps Falling Off

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I once, and still have, a good German (Rohm) keyless drill chuck. I then bought a new unbranded Chinese arbor somewhere, bad move. The chuck would not stay on the arbor. I suspected the arbor had an improperly made taper even though it had the needed taper marked on it..
I then bought a more expensive Jacobs brand arbor. It matched perfectly. It has been in use for years.
Properly made drill chuck arbors and drill chucks, use properly, always work perfectly. If you have to play with it, it was not made properly. Alternately, the arbor or chuck was used and damaged.

Unfortunately, I have had other instances of poor quality control on new Chinese made tools and machines including an otherwise nice Grizzly lathe and also a Jet lathe at the University where I supervise a Mechanical Engineering machine shop. It baffles me why the China made machines frequently have good engineering designs, good bearings, etc. lots of quality machining and then screw up a nice machine by saving nearly nothing on Quality Control.
 
It baffles me why the China made machines frequently have good engineering designs, good bearings, etc. lots of quality machining and then screw up a nice machine by saving nearly nothing on Quality Control.
It all comes down to what the importer/dealer wants to pay for the goods, as the saying goes, there's quality, delivery and price, you can have any two of them.
 
John Ruskin. He was a guy that was good enough to have a prestigious English University name. after him , wrote as follows:-

"There is hardly anything in this World that someone cannot sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that person's lawful prey. It is unwise to pay too much but bit is worse to pay too little"
 
John Ruskin. He was a guy that was good enough to have a prestigious English University name. after him , wrote as follows:-

"There is hardly anything in this World that someone cannot sell a little cheaper, and the people who consider price alone are that person's lawful prey. It is unwise to pay too much but bit is worse to pay too little"

Thinking tooling, I have just lashed out almost £200 having found that my drill chucks , drilling a 7mm bore in a pair of holders for 'way out' in aluminium and not good enough in the steel one.
The steel one would have done but re aluniniu one was 'a rattling good fit' Ugh!!!

So whilst I was on, I bought some decent little metric taps and dies- and realised that I would have to make metric holders- :(

Then I had a think. I wanted a set of soft jaws for the Myford( Per BaronJ) and ran into trouble with supplies now.
All was not lost, I had a 4"SC chuck on the Sieg- with soft jaws. But, but, myfords have threaded spindles- so a back plate was necessary:confused: Unfortunately, the Covid-19 is around the suppli ers prenise s and there is 'lockdown'? Except Myford faceplates have 4 or 8 slots. The Sieg chuck has THREE.
But I have 10 inch or so un-drilled plate from one of my dividing heads- this one is a Vertex.

So I am having to cutdown the Vertex plate to fit and then - drill the 3 holes------ but the vertex is too big for the Myford being bought for the mill drill. Hopes haven't faded as a I have a Geo Thomas Small dividing head which will fit the saddle-- but the tee slots are imperial- but the tapping-- is metric.

I Hope??????????? Face East because that was where the last miracle was supposed to come from.
I missed that one.
 
By the way - I thought I'd report back that since I did the thermal expansion/contraction trick mounting my drill chuck, it has not dropped off once. I've made a few parts in the mill. Roughly three dozen operations, which I consider opening & closing the chuck on different cutters. It's a noticeable improvement.
 
By the way - I thought I'd report back that since I did the thermal expansion/contraction trick mounting my drill chuck, it has not dropped off once. I've made a few parts in the mill. Roughly three dozen operations, which I consider opening & closing the chuck on different cutters. It's a noticeable improvement.

My two MT chucks have screwed in arbours- and are quoted 'Precision' from Rohm in Germany.
Again, they are keyless so no lost keys:D
 
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I am past 80tears old and my drill chuck hasn't fallen off yet (although it doesn't seem to hold its original warranty tolerances);) Cant seem to make the expansion/contraction process work either☹
Ray M
 
I am past 80tears old and my drill chuck hasn't fallen off yet (although it doesn't seem to hold its original warranty tolerances);) Cant seem to make the expansion/contraction process work either☹
Ray M
I'm past 90 years and can't hold my original tolerances either:)

As for worn drill chucks, probably I should throw several of them out. I was reading George Thomas again about his measurements taken on his workshop ones. Like lathe chucks there are really no ways of overhaul.

I was getting sloppy oversize bores-- and having to do things over again and wasting time and materials.

Neither of which I have a lot of:D
 
I have a Albrecht keyless drill chuck on my mill with a intergral R-8 shank made in Germany, not cheep but worth every penny....packrat
 
Bob - good to see you are up and running.

I have an Albrecht keyless that I purchased brand new, also purchased an Albrecht R8 adapter for it at the same time. Run out was worse than my Jacobs 14N it was supposed to replace, and worse than my Rohm. I put the Albrecht chuck on a no name R8 adapter and got much improved runout. Sent the original adapter back got a new one. It was much better but still not as good as the $$ I spent. Finally I started rotating the spot where I seated the chuck on the arbor, found a sweet spot where runnout was about .001 right at the jaw . At the end of a 4" rod it was about .0015, which is in spec for an Albrecht (.04mm aprox .0016). I am happy as I have done that before on arbors. You would think Albrecht could get it right.

By the way for those who want to lap the two together - LOL. You are going to need a setup that can keep the chuck center axis and the arbor center axis in line or you will get a nice wobble. There is no way you can hold that chuck by hand on the same arbor axis, unless you are really good. Tried it several times, so I am not good at it! With a nice fixture got them dead on.

Bob
 
Quote " Albrecht chuck on a no name R8 adapter and got much improved runout "

Buy the drill chuck with a intergral R-8 shank and you will be happy with the run out, no laping needed...
 
Quote " Albrecht chuck on a no name R8 adapter and got much improved runout "

Buy the drill chuck with a intergral R-8 shank and you will be happy with the run out, no laping needed...

Packrat

As I noted that was an experiment while waiting for the replacement Albrecht Arbor and I had no intention of lapping anything in, as again noted not a very good thing to try. When I finally got Albrecht supplier to send me a decent arbor there was no problem. The reason I purchased separate parts they came out less on sale and my experience with integral Albrecht Chuck was less than satisfactory, they are not the end all. I purchased a 3MT integral for my lathe and it was really bad, took three of them before I got one that I thought was decent. I actually sold it one day to guy who came by my shop, as I just did not trust it.

As I said if Albrecht had better "Q" control there stuff would fit together correctly. If they are going to sell separate components they need to spec them out to different tolerances. I have five small Albrecht chucks (less 5/16) on various arbors all of which I would not part with, super precise.

Anyway as I said I got the R8 combination to work just fine with no lapping or anything just put it together with a little testing. I am very picky when it comes to equipment condition. I want to know it is me screwing up - not the equipment, I really do not like chasing two variables.

Again just my experience and opinions, clearly you have had much better experience with the integral product and are very happy with it.

Bob
 

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