Thread: Keyed vs keyless chucks!

Ben,

I have keyed Jacobs Super Ball Bearing chucks mounted in my tailstock and drill press. They have never slipped. I have a Rohm Supra 1/2" keyless chuck, purchased new, that has slipped and a couple of bitty Albrecht chucks that I imagine would never get worked hard enough to slip.

Here's a link to a brief discussion about chucks, it appears that my Rohm is the base model. http://bbs.homeshopmachinist.net/thr...ohm-vs-Albrect

Bob.

Hi there,

I have only ever owned one keyless chuck on my drill press. It was a (reasonably) cheapie and one day it fell apart and all the bit scattered on the ground. I put the keyed chuck back on, where it stays today. When it was working, it was pretty good. I dare say if I had spent a few more dollars then I would still be using it. The chuck mechanism seems to be a finer thread and so gives greater purchase (or torque) meaning you can achieve a similar or even better grip to that of a keyed chuck. Well, at least that's how it seemed to me.

BTW, I was always told to do key up all three holes too, which I still do.

Simon

My drill press had a keyless chuck when purchased. Bloody thing used to lock up when only tightened by hand requiring a Stilson wrench to loosen it. I replaced it with a keyed chuck and no more problem.

Roger

Originally Posted by Ben Dono

Anyone have a different perspective on this?

I was the same as you. There are many different keyless chucks out there. The most famous is the German Albrecht. It is one of the best too, along with the Rohm Spiro. Many Chinese chucks are copies of the Albrecht, cost a fraction and are quite good for a universal drill press. I have such a Chinese chuck on the waldown and like it, a 1-13mm type, its installed most of the time. For the lathes I have one Albrecht 0.5-10mm each, much quicker to use than the keyed chuck and very low runout. For the smaller drill press I have an Italian Validus up to 6mm and just got delivery of a very nice Spanish made Accupro 0.4-3mm about the size of a wine cork. For the mill I sometimes like to fit a small keyless chuck into the collet chuck to hold smallish drills.

The above chucks are all not that ideal for tapping. Some keyless chucks have a lock bezel, that prevents the chuck letting go the bit in reverse. I have a Rohm Supra like that on the drill press with the handheld drill.

Where I really need more torque, for example to hold larger taps or drills, I found all chucks - keyed or not, cheap of top of the shelf - leave some wanting. Since I already use two ER25 collet sets both for the small lathe and the mill, I bought a cheap Chinese collet chuck with MT2 shaft to fit into either lathe tailstock or the Waldown drill press. Its a little more hassle to swap collet according to tool size, but this never slips.

To sum it up, yes I can recommend going keyless. But just like with keyed chucks, you need probably at least three different sizes to grip down to very small drills as well as to larger drills and hole saws and circular cutters etc. And you may find you need different shafts, like MT2, Mt3, and parallel shaft, and you do not want to swap shafts. If money is tight, and you already own good quality keyed chucks, I would stick with keyed chucks. There is nothing that a keyless chuck can do better than a keyed chuck. Its just a matter of comfort and a little time saving. If you are short on lathe tools or milling cutters, better spend the money there first.

One last warning: if you buy your first keyless chuck, DO NOT try to drill/tap a hole through it to better remove the shaft sometime in future. Keyless chucks usually have a hardened leadscrew at the center, you either ruin your drill bit or the new chuck. The trick with the drilled and tapped hole is only for keyed chuck.

My DM 45 mill drill came with a R8 arbor keyless drill chuck. I've never had a problem with it but It has only been used for light duty work

My Sheraton lathe has a old ROHM keyless chuck in the tailstock. I have used this chuck many times , the jaws have never slipped but the MT2 arbor has spun a few times ! Mike

Good quality keyless chucks are every bit as good as keyed chucks IMO. I have a cheap keyed chuck on the Hercus and it is crap, doesn't grip well at all. But thats just cheap tools for ya...
I find that when countersinking it is best to use a collet chuck. My good countersinks seem to have hard shanks so a drill chuck just won't grip well

One thing to note, and i have been told this by several different sources, is never to use a hole saw in a keyless chuck, at least a precision one. The torque required to drive them is huge and you will overtighten the chuck with them in use.

Ew

I think there is an element of luck in chucks.....
I have several keyed Jacobs and Rohm chucks as well as a few cheapies from old corded drills. Some hold like the devil himself - I sheared off a 3/8"UNF mount off one of them once using a stepped drill. Most WILL let go when gripping bigger drills or hardened shank taps or solid carbide bits.

I also have several keyless chucks. A cheaper CTC 1/2" one which lets go no matter what I do, a CTC quality 5/8" one that never lets go of anything, simply because it is so big I can put MUCH more torque into it by hand, an originally very expensive 20mm capacity CNC chuck which has a secondary fine opposite-handed threaded grip section for REALLY tightening - and it lets go when using taps or solic carbide bits....

The best one I have is a 10mm Albrecht which simply tightens itself visibly if something starts spinning. Up to a point where it will break the Morse taper loose. Then I'm in trouble: I have to use Stilsons to get it undone again (with soft padding in between of course!).

I was tapping some 1/2"BSW today on the lathe as a matter of fact, about 20mm deep, and ended up using the Albrecht (didn't try the 5/8" from the drill press to compare - I should have). The Albrecht worked like a charm - even under power.

Using the VFD to do that is magic!
Gently from 0 Hz slowly going to 10Hz as it starts cutting, putting in a bit more power as it bites to maintain nice slow speed. Got it wrong a couple of times and the Albrecht spun its Morse taper arbour in the tailstock - but just for a smidgen, because I kept my hand on the speed pot. Probably not the recommended procedure, but it works for me.

Not sure if I should fit some grub screws in the tailstock barrel (like my smaller lathe has) to stop the MT2 arbour from spinning (to save the barrel and arbour from wear), or if I would then put the barrel or the tang at risk of breaking?

The arbor slipping in the lathe tailstock appears to be a common complaint. No wonder, since in a lathe TS the tang does not engage. Of course it happened to me too, but less frequently now. Some hints:

- if you expect doing a high torque operation where the TS taper may be at risk of slipping, rub some chalk stick (like from the blackboard at school) against the chuck arbor before inserting it. The chalk greatly enhances holding power. But it needs be wiped off and the re-applied everytime the tapers are separated.

- never let the taper slip, eg do not try to increase feed in an attempt to get it to hold again. Doing so will score both the arbor (or drill shaft if it was an MT shaft drill) AND the inside of the barrel.

- a scored shaft is easy to fix with a fine flat file, followed by a fine stone.

- a scored barrel will forever keep slipping, it only gets worse and more tools get damaged. A scored barrel must be fixed asap. There are two types of barrels, soft ones and hardened ones.

- the soft ones can be easily repaired with a Morse Taper hand reamer. The reamer has a center pip at the back where it can be guided by a dead center in the headstock. However, if done several times concentricity with the barrel outer will suffer. For example, my Hercus tailstock barrel is soft.

- my emco lathe has a hardened TS barrel, and that is harder to score but also much harder to fix when it gets scored, because the reamer gets damaged instead of cutting.

- meticulous cleaning of the F and M taper before sliding together helps avoid slippage in the first place

- large taps should only be guided by a center (or better pump center) in the tailstock, and the torque should be taken by a tap wrench resting on the saddle, maybe with a wood plate in between to protect paint. Sometimes a wrench can be used on the shaft of a large drill to take the brunt of torque.

I've got an old school Qualos keyless chuck I use as a quill chuck on my lathe and the MT2 shank will slip before the chuck does so I'm very happy with that one.
One drill press has an old Rohm keyless which holds prety well and the Rohm chuck on my Dewalt cordless drill is the ducks nuts because the drill will twist out of your hands before the bit slips.
The drill chuck on my mill is a keyed Exakt and while it holds very well I can't find the correct key, a Jacobs key almost fits but you just can't get that last bit which is a pain.
I've got a couple of nice Jacobs chucks but they don't fit the B16 taper on the shank for the mill which is a European standard.
If I could I would like to replace the Exakt chuck with a keyless Rohm Spiro or an Albrecht but they are a bit pricey.

I am inclined to think that the new keyless chucks which will self tighten under load are as good as a keyed chuck when it comes to holding capabilities.
The chuck on the Dewalt has bound up too tight to open by hand once (and that was operator error before I knew how it worked) but a strap wrench got it open in no time.
As for holding taps, no drill chuck is designed to do this, like end-mills, taps have hardened shanks and a drill chuck needs a soft shank to allow it to grip properly, that's why tapping heads use collets.
Cheers,
Greg.

Hi All,
Very interesting subject.
All My Chucks are Keyless. Once in a blue moon, Idrill any steel, so it is all wood mainly.
approx. 2 years ago, we went to a Blacksmith Festival, in Footscray, Vic. Chap had a few bits for sale, & under it all, there was a big 5/8in.Keyless Chuck. " Yours for $10 says he".
Whats wrong with it. " It Slips ".
Gave it a 2 day wash in Petrol, dried it out, give it a couple of squirts of Graphite Powder, cleaned up the MT.
Best Chuck I have. Got no Idea what he was complaining of.
So, in all I have 5. Beats the heck out of using those $%^&*(( Keys & or finding them.

That's a whole lot of good feed back fellas!

Lots learnt with one simple question. I'm glad I asked it!

I'm going to keep an eye out for some decent keyless chucks and mix them up with the machinery.

I get the fact that loosing the key is a pain but I guess I don't find using them all that much of an issue. There is one key next to each piece of machinery and the rest of the hand drills have keyless chucks.
Actually, one of the hilti drills I have has an interchangeable chuck, keyless and sds. The keyless chuck is a nice piece of kit with a reverse lock. I cannot bring myself to cannibalise it as the mechanism to swap out the two chuck takes all of a few seconds.

Thanks for all the input everyone!

The first time I came into contact with a keyless chuck was a Rohm and it was terrible because it kept locking up and not letting go. Fast forward 20+ years and I tried an Albrecht. Wonderful thing (when properly cleaned and set up). I now buy them secondhand on ebay, strip them and replace any dud parts. They are well made so usually come up good as new.

As Ewan alluded to, don't use them for hole saws or drills beyond their rated capacity, so if they are marked say 3 to 13mm, don't use a step shanked drill in them to do a 16mm hole. Mine tend to loosen when I try that - possibly a reaction to the extra inertia. I have a keyed chuck in the bottom draw for jobs outside the chuck capacity (although generally go MT first)

Michael

http://trihonu.home.comcast.net/~tri...rillChucks.pdf

I just stumbled across this if anyone is interested.

Originally Posted by Michael G

As Ewan alluded to, don't use them for hole saws or drills beyond their rated capacity, so if they are marked say 3 to 13mm, don't use a step shanked drill in them to do a 16mm hole.

I keep a 16mm 3MT no-name keyless chuck specifically to do that sort of work ; i.e. hole saws, shanked bits, stepped bits, 1/2" shanked woodworking Forstner bits up to 30 mm diameter in ally (metho lube/coolant) etc. and of course this usually over tightens the jaws. I have on occasion removed it from the MT, "put it in a vice" and use a multi grips to open up the jaws hence it has vice and multi grip jaw marks on the outside. It's more than 5 years old and I can't seem to kill it.