Accessory Question

wrote: (clip) Most catalogs offes "keyless" and "keyed" chucks. Is this simply a personal preferance? Or are there considerations on a lathe that I'm unfamiliar with? ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Keyless chucks are faster to use, but my experience is that they slip under high load. When that happens after you've done your best, then what?

Most people use a Morse taper for everything except faceplates and chucks. Some people with large lathes use threaded spur drives for very heavy work.

Short summary: Morse taper for spindle work. Threaded drive for everything else.

Hal Both Morse taper and threaded accesories work fine. in general I like centers and Jacob's chucks with a taper and threads on the rest although a threaded spur center is fine by me. I would not like a keyless Jacob's (drill) chuck. There ends up being a fair amount of torque on the drill used and a keyless is apt to slip. A little tightening at each of the three holes and you are good to go.

Keyless is great when you can use the drill to tighten or loosen for you. I never can get enough on one with large hands and two closely-spaced small rings to grip.

If you can get through to secure the taper with a draw bolt, you'll find it useful at the headstock as both a chuck with all it can grip in the way of sanding and buffing, and with chuck unthreaded, a place to thread up other accessories.

Hi Hal

First off, there are quite a few lathes out there that do not have a morse taper in the headstock and also some don't have them in the tailstock either, the accessories are then screwed on, not the best setup IMO but that's how things are done sometimes. pros for a morse taper, it's more accurate than a screwed on part, screw thread needs some room between male and female parts to be able to thread them on, and tapers where made to be able to remove work pieces from a lathe for fitting etc and put back on the lathes and run true again (metal working lathes) Tapers will hold well if pressure is applied to the tapers, as when turning between centers, also when drilling into, but not when withdrawing the drill bit, so it is a good idea to get a taper with a threaded hole in it, so a drawbar can be used to keep the taper in tight when needed.

The drill chuck for a lathe should be a key tightening chuck IMO, you can get a more secure grip on the inserted pieces, there are good hand tightening chucks out there and they are quicker, especially in a reversible drill where you can hold the chuck and trigger the drill to either tighten or loosen the bits, but they do usually not hold as tightly as a key operated chuck, and when drilling on the lathe there can be a lot of twisting force being applied to a drill bit.

Have fun and take care Leo Van Der Loo

Again, thanks to all who responded! I'm particularly greatful for the opinions regarding the drill chuck. Had I not asked, I would most likely have purchased a "keyless" chuck. As it is, I'll go with a standard, keyed chuck.

As far as othe accessories go, I guess I'll just "see what works" for me. :)

Thanks again! Hal