My Drill Chuck Keeps Falling Off

[CFLBob]

Drill chucks should only be used for drilling. Hope your not using it for milling as under side forces they will ultimately fall off anyway.

Nope. It's on my milling machine and is only used for drilling holes and countersinks.

 

[Cogsy]

An hour in the toaster sounds about right but I would have left the part in the freezer at least 8-12 hours to get it properly cold. Sounds like you've got it sorted now anyway but something to consider if you need to do similar in the future.

 

[BaronJ]

Hi CFLBob, Guys,

I often use automotive chrome polish for fine lapping work !

 

[goldstar31]

Might I suggest one of Geo Thomas's favourites? The use of cigarette paper!
I've been trying to get a little slap of cast iron to sit firmly in the vice- and despite judicious clouts with various hammers. I'm making a cast iron tool holder BEFORE making the Worden-- mentioned somewhere.
So I tore a strip off- an envelo-- and voila. It's as solid as the proverbial brick toilet.
If you'Bob' have no success from a similar expedient- buy a new drill chuck and arbour.
If someone actually costed the failed/ or now successful repair and my late father was around, he'd have thrown the anvil and uttered strange Welsh words.

 

[justisla]

The "smoke" test is using a candle flame to make soot on the part !

And there was me thinking it was-- go & have a cigarette & a sit & think about it for a while !!!
Does work for some problems

 

[goldstar31]

I had to laugh but cut slips of cigarette paper held or not held from jobs held in say vices is a great way to determine 'fit'
Again, setting up for - say milling is to stick a piece of cigarette paper and bring the cutter down gently until the cutter sweeps the paper away- and that is your zero.
The pernicket mike' their papers.

I was once sent into what I believe was an abandoned top secret Air Ministry or RAF unit to 'relieve' it of stationery. . Not all playing at would be a 'I'll be an engineer some day' and I reported just 'my haul' by counting the number of sheets in one inch-- and doing a simple sum from that. There was a lorry full.
I never told him how I forged rubber stamps on 'Leave Passes' I did it with blotting paper!

 

[HennieL]

You can try chilling the adaptor in the freezer and warming the chuck in the oven (say 100C/210F). Make sure the chuck jaws are retracted inside the body. Using an oven mitt, hold the heated chuck vertically on a block of wood and drop the chilled adaptor into it. Give the adaptor a few good taps with a soft faced hammer. This will give you a tight shrink-fit.

I can't swear it's all fixed, but it's better than it was.

Well done - and good advice from jack620 - that's also how I do it, with one exception - I cool the tapered arbor/adapter by placing it in liquid nitrogen (LN) for a few minutes. At -196°C it shrinks much more than it does at just 0°, and it's pretty certain that your environment will never become that cold ever again, so no risk of the taper shrinking again due to cold weather, and falling off again in the middle of winter.

I get my LN from a local farmer's co-operative - it's used in artificial insemination by cattle breeders to store their prize bull's semen, and is generally available here in South Africa, so it should also be available just about anywhere else in the World. I normally buy as much as will go into a 2 liter coffee thermos flask - that keeps it usable for between 12 and 24 hours before it all evaporates. I use LN regularly as part of the heat treating I do on the knives I make - cryogenic treatment is required on many of the exotic "super steels" used on high-end knives.

Three safety issues to keep in mind:

1. It will freeze anything that it touches, and kill whatever body part it freezes
2. It will replace the oxygen in a closed room/vehicle, and you will die from asphyxiation - keep a door open to the outside, and preferably a fan blowing out of the room. Ideally, have an open window somewhere opposite the door to allow fresh air to enter.
3. DO NOT close the lid of the flask or whatever container you use - the nitrogen gas that forms continuously will want to expand, and will blow up the container if it is shut air tight (and spray you and/or the room with the liquid nitrogen in the container, causing injury to any flesh it touches - see 1 above...

 

[Steamchick]

Instead of the candle black, I use pencil, dirty oily hands, felt-pen, or Engineer's Blue when I want to be posh, or can't find my pencil (Behind my ear? on the floor?), or haven't been working on old british bikes (dirty hands), or the felt-pen has had the top left off and dried-up!...

 

[Steamchick]

Stupid of me. Just remembered - when I got my miller-driller, I needed an arbour for the new drill chuck I had, so bought one with female thread in the back to take a draw-bar. Does your chuck arbour not take a draw-bar - like all the other milling chucks, etc you use in your machine? - A new one to suit your taper and draw-bar is pretty cheap, or you can make another draw-bar with a bit of rod, a bolt and a welder.... (which is what I did). I use draw-bars to take the collet-chuck from my miller to use in my lathe when I want a specific sized precision grip, instead of the 3-jaw chuck. Morse tapers without draw bar won't take eccentric loads (side thrusts from milling tools, fly-cutters, etc.), only balanced loads from multi-cutting edged drills (twist drills, etc.).

 

[goldstar31]

Instead of the candle black, I use pencil, dirty oily hands, felt-pen, or Engineer's Blue when I want to be posh, or can't find my pencil (Behind my ear? on the floor?), or haven't been working on old british bikes (dirty hands), or the felt-pen has had the top left off and dried-up!...

Perhaps an alternative would be to d et ermine. whether the taper shank is hollow or bellied.
Just a thought or three from someone who isn't apparently regarded as an engineer.

 

[awake]

Stupid of me. Just remembered - when I got my miller-driller, I needed an arbour for the new drill chuck I had, so bought one with female thread in the back to take a draw-bar. Does your chuck arbour not take a draw-bar - like all the other milling chucks, etc you use in your machine? - A new one to suit your taper and draw-bar is pretty cheap, or you can make another draw-bar with a bit of rod, a bolt and a welder.... (which is what I did). I use draw-bars to take the collet-chuck from my miller to use in my lathe when I want a specific sized precision grip, instead of the 3-jaw chuck. Morse tapers without draw bar won't take eccentric loads (side thrusts from milling tools, fly-cutters, etc.), only balanced loads from multi-cutting edged drills (twist drills, etc.).

I think the issue is that the drill chuck is (or was) falling off the Jacobs taper - not that the arbor was falling out of the mill. Of course, I may be wrong - I am prepared to be corrected!

 

[Richard Hed]

And there was me thinking it was-- go & have a cigarette & a sit & think about it for a while !!!
Does work for some problems

My kidz keep telling me to give up smoking. But I caught a pea Harvester on Fire two weeks ago (trying to get enough $$ to buy a better lathe),. which wasn't my fault really, and so they now call me "Smokin' Don". We got the fire put out before it did any damage but it was fun all the same.

Instead of the candle black, I use pencil, dirty oily hands, felt-pen, or Engineer's Blue when I want to be posh, or can't find my pencil (Behind my ear? on the floor?), or haven't been working on old british bikes (dirty hands), or the felt-pen has had the top left off and dried-up!...

Yeah, been there done that.

 

[Steamchick]

If the drill chuck is falling off the taper on the arbour, I wonder if a "strong bond" anaerobic adhesive will work? (E.g one of the Loctite or Japanese adhesive manufacturers' range? But stronger than thread lock or bearing fit grades. There are dozens, so they must do a taper-fit adhesive.).
But I have no experience of that Jacobs JT taper being a problem.
K

 

[Steamchick]

Goldstar 31. Do you own one? The ony classic racing engines I had were a Triumph 500C circa 1955 (splayed inlets and exhausts, aka later 650s) and a couple of 500 GP engines (parallel inlet and parallel exhausts). Well, one was a GP but after the previous owner had a "failure" he could only get replacement fire- engine barrels.
Sorry, I have drifted off the drill problem.
K

 

[goldstar31]

I had an 'intruder at midnight last night.
Post deleted- Police and my family advised

 

[Charles Lamont]

There should be no need to shrink fit a Jacobs taper.

 

[BaronJ]

I had an 'intruder at midnight last night.
Post deleted- Police and my family advised

I hope that you have the shotgun handy !

 

[goldstar31]

Ah Well, the whole place is under construction again with some firm putting in fibre cables. So cars are being parked anywhere.
My good neighbours solved the occurrence which was a car bringing in neighbours who have an Indian restaurant- and parking at my entrance- and nattering and nattering- with the car lights full on into my bedroom.
All the street lights are - off and one of my security lights is US. Son wont let me change the fitting.
I taught him- but the fact has not sunk in- yet.

 

[justisla]

I had a 5/8 inch drill chuck that kept falling off, so I used a centre punch to put about a dozen indents into the taper. I then hammered the chuck on tight. It was on a Sealey pillar drill that i retained after I sold my joinery business 20 years ago. I have had it about 40 years. It has not fallen off since & I use it regularly

 

[terryd]

Instead of the candle black, I use pencil, dirty oily hands, felt-pen, or Engineer's Blue when I want to be posh, or can't find my pencil (Behind my ear? on the floor?), or haven't been working on old british bikes (dirty hands), or the felt-pen has had the top left off and dried-up!...

I wouldn't use engineers blue for marking out. That is greasy mucky stuff used as a 'witness' when fitting parts together, I'd prefer to use 'layout blue' which dries hard and quickly.