Drill Chuck Purchase Advice

[William Rogers]

I have purchased several drill chucks in the $40 range and have for the most part been disappointed. There may be good chucks in that range, but I haven’t found one. Also is there is a keyless chuck that really works for a lathe? I realize I will/may need to spend more than $40 for a quality chuck, but rather not make a mistake on a higher $$ chuck.

Edit: I occasionally use forstner bits up to 2” in addition to 1/2” and under bits. Wood type varies

 

[GRJensen]

I had one of the cheap HF chucks ... it was junk. About 5 years ago, I replaced it with one from Nova. It is a keyed chuck, but I have been happy with it. I also use some big Forstner bits and have never had an issue.

 

[Owen Lowe]

Bison brand made in Poland have been good to me. I've got 3 of them. Of course you could spring for Albrecht if you want the Cadillac (or is it now Lexus?) of chucks.

 

[Dean Center]

I've always heard that the design of drill chucks makes them inherently imprecise. Maybe you need a metal lathe or machine tool to get the accuracy you want.

 

[Roger Wiegand]

I've found a couple Albrecht keyless chucks on a #2 MT for under $100 on Ebay. Even an old, worm Albrecht is better than a new Chinese chuck. The two I've purchased have been more than adequate.

 

[William Rogers]

I found my drill chuck I first bought. Name on it is Golden Goose. From memory it was a decent working chuck. Jacobs knock off Made in Taiwan. I’m nor sure why I retired it, but plan to clean it up and give it another try. In the mean time I’ll keep a watch on eBay for a Albrecht with a MT 2 taper. My other two chucks have no name and not very good.

 

[Tom De Winter]

I picked up an Albrecht a decade or so ago and haven't used it as it has a 1/2" straight shank. I think it has a Jacobs Taper in the chuck itself.
Anyone know how to remove the shank without their special tools?

 

[Tom Albrecht]

I've never been able to justify the expense of buying the chuck with my own name on it, though I never thought to look on Ebay.

After some inexpensive off brands that were crap, I got a good keyless Jacobs chuck that I bought new. I don't remember what I paid, but it was far less than "mine".

 

[Owen Lowe]

I picked up an Albrecht a decade or so ago and haven't used it as it has a 1/2" straight shank. I think it has a Jacobs Taper in the chuck itself.
Anyone know how to remove the shank without their special tools?

There are two ways to go about it:
First is to use a wedging action. There are inexpensive wedge sets available for the job but in the video below he uses an open wrench to accomplish the same thing. To use the commercial wedges you need to have a groove in the shank near the chuck body.

View: https://youtu.be/EtT7SS0qPF0?t=405


The second method takes advantage of the knowledge that vibration is a taper's worst enemy. This is less sure fire than wedging because there may be rust in the mating taper surfaces holding them together or it could be a very well fitting taper that isn't as sensitive to vibration. Clamp the shank in a vise with the chuck hanging downward. Use a reciprocating saw with no blade to apply vibration to either the shank or the chuck body. Make sure you have a catch bucket or something below if/when the chuck drops off.

Finally, don't let yourself be tempted to use a hammer on the chuck body. You'll only ding and damage it with little chance of successfully removing the shank. The forces to remove the shank need to be equally distributed around the taper and a hammer can't do this.

 

[George Kuipers]

Oneway sells a good reasonable priced chuck, 1/2" 2MT.

 

[Tom De Winter]

Thanks Owen. Of course my 1/2" shank doesn't have the groove but I may be able to clamp it in my metal lathes 3-Jaw and wedge between the two chucks.

 

[Roger Holzmacher]

I picked up an Albrecht a decade or so ago and haven't used it as it has a 1/2" straight shank. I think it has a Jacobs Taper in the chuck itself.
Anyone know how to remove the shank without their special tools?

Open the jaws fully and look down the center. Some chucks are hollow so that you can press the arbor out. It's not always very obvious so you might have to look pretty closely. I've used a simple hand lever arbor press but you might be able to just set it on a machinist vice and knock it out with a brass punch and a hammer or get a little more creative with a punch/bolt a few pieces of wood and some clamps.

 

[John Torchick]

Harbor Freight keyed chuck, still going after a number of years.

 

[odie]

I found my drill chuck I first bought. Name on it is Golden Goose. From memory it was a decent working chuck. Jacobs knock off Made in Taiwan. I’m nor sure why I retired it, but plan to clean it up and give it another try. In the mean time I’ll keep a watch on eBay for a Albrecht with a MT 2 taper. My other two chucks have no name and not very good.

William......You also might check on Rohm chucks made in Germany. Plenty of them on eBay new/used, keyed/keyless, various mounting options and sizes. I have one of these marked "Rohm, West Germany", so it kinda dates mine. Good quality.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R40&_trksid=p2057872.m570.l1311&_nkw=rohm+chuck&_sacat=0

-----odie-----

 

[Larry Steinmetz]

I've found a couple Albrecht keyless chucks on a #2 MT for under $100 on Ebay. Even an old, worm Albrecht is better than a new Chinese chuck. The two I've purchased have been more than adequate.

About 4 months ago I found an Albrecht keyless chuck with a #2 MT for $105 on eBay with free shipping. When the chuck arrived, it appeared to be obviously used only because it did not look all brand spanking new shiny. That said, the jaws were in excellent shape with no chips out of it, the mechanism work flawlessly and the run out was minimal. This reminds me, I need to look for another one!

 

[Perry Hilbert]

Not knowing there are such special name brands, I purchased a few no name Chucks from China on MT2. For my use they are more than adequate. And I routinely use 2 inch forstner bits. I did want a keyless chuck for a specific operation and it turned out to be cheaper and less hassle to buy a corded drill with keyless chuck at Walmart for $14.00. Seems odd to be able to buy the entire drill for less than I can find a part of one. But most importantly, it does exactly what I need it to do