Gunner, the pleasure was all mine. Thanks for enlightening me on the history of the chucker and its uses.

I just spent the past morning speaking to Hardinge's parts distributor out of Cranberry, PA Great Lakes Morris. The guys were awesome and provided me with a complete set of operating, maintenance, electrical schematics and parts list for my HC.

Turns out the serial number equated to a production date of 1979.

I was looking for a keyed chuck as you had suggested and just realized the 1/2" straight shank chucks I was getting ready to purchase would not fit my HC with it's standard 5/8" tool holder. I looked at getting the bushing to go from 5/8 to 1/2 , but it was easier said than done. Not easily available?

Should I simply just buy a 5/8 str shank keyed chuck and be done with it or do you think I should look for a proper bushing and keep the 1/2" approach to be more uniform with my tooling?

I plan in investing in a vertical mill or cnc in the immediate future and would rather invest into something that can have dual purposes.

Thoughts?