On Wed, 26 Aug 2015 18:12:08 -0700 (PDT), wrote:

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.

So its probably in pretty good shape then.

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?

Get drill chucks with a 3/8 stright shank and use a easy to make/buy
3/8-5/8" bushing. Chuckle..its unlikley you will twist off a 3/8"
shank on a chucker. Not enough hp at the spindle, even at 3000 rpm

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?

Depends on how big a CNC mill you want. One can find them for free to
1.5 million dollars..or more.

Is your need for accuracy, or speed, or both and what is your budget?

Lots of machining centers out there for less than $5k...if you have
the room for one.

https://picasaweb.google.com/1040422...97654969568642

https://picasaweb.google.com/1040422...97703811047058

Gunner