In article ,
john wrote:
Hi,

I'm looking for a good value on an MT 2 drill chuck for my drill press.
What brands hold up well? Suppliers?

Well ... several have said that they do not care for the keyless
chucks, but I like them -- and have several brands, Albrecht (the top of
the line), Rohm (similar quality), a Jacobs keyless, and an import
keyless clone of the Albrecht which is not as good, but has more
capacity than an Albrecht that I can afford.

That said -- there are reasons to have keyed style chucks on
hand -- if you use them in something with a reversible spindle. Either
tailstock chucks for lathes, or spindle chucks for vertical milling
machines. The reason for this is that a left-hand drill bit (good for
drilling out broken-off screws) will *loosen* a good keyless chuck, just
as normal forward operation should *tighten* it. On my drill press (for
the moment), I can't run it backwards, so there is no matter there. In
a lathe or a milling machine, it is easy to run the spindle backwards
for the right tools.

Now -- all of this said -- most chucks do not come set up for
Morse taper -- they have a female Jacobs taper in the back of the chuck.
There are arbors available to fit most Jacobs tapers to Morse tapers,
and this is what I use in my drill press and my lathes. (One lathe is
MT-1, one is MT-3, while the drill press is MT-2.) I normally use the
5/8" clone keyless in the lathe, unless I need to work in reverse, so I
keep a keyed chuck on another MT-3 arbor ready to hand. For the smaller
lathe, I have three keyless chucks (1/8" Albrecht, 1/4" Albrecht, and
3/8" Rohm) -- and no need for a keyed chuck, because that lathe does not
have a reversible spindle. The smaller chucks chew up less of the space
between spindle and tailstock, so I use them unless I need to use
something larger in the tailstock. And for many larger drill sizes in
the tailstock, I use ones with a direct MT-1 shank, so there is *no*
chuck wasting space between workpiece and tailstock. (That is a rather
small lathe, so this matters to me.

Good Luck,
DoN.
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