Harbor Fright Drill Press

My last drill press had one of those infernal spring loaded chuck keys. The first thing I did was to disable it.

Fortunately my current press came with a regular key.

Jon

Which suggests that you like to leave the key in the chuck? Just being able to let go of the key, and have it pop out of the chuck and be spring-wound up to its storage location on the side of the head. Yes, without the spring wound chain, it is a bit more awkward, but with the chain, I *like* that feature. I have also left the ejection spring on the key to my Bison 3-jaw lathe chuck, FWIW.

And for the keys to the other lathe chucks, which don't have the ejection spring, I still don't leave them in the chuck. (That makes me nervous -- to see a key left in the chuck.)

Enjoy, DoN.

I had one of those self-ejecting keys on a drill press Jacobs superchuck. I used if for a while, then permanently defeated the ejector, mainly because it took an awkward amount of force to keep the key fully seated, and it was always popping out of engagement at the most inconvenient times.

My policy is to never leave keys in a chuck, not even for a moment. And to stand to one side when starting the lathe. Each key has a reserved spot, making inspection easy.

Joe Gwinn

My (gloat) 1935 Delta bench height drill press has a 'normal' key. I have it feed through a slot in a strip ( 1/8" x 3/4" wide) of leather. The leather is then folded back and bound with copper wire. The other end is looped through the motor slot and likewise bound over.

I won't or maybe due to the weight of the strap leave it in the chuck.

The real gloat - I can chuck up a #60 drill in that old beautiful chuck.

The key never is in the chuck unless in my hand. And it is always within an arms reach when needed.

Mart> >

Blink blink.....

Clean both the hole and the arbor..stick it in and hit it with a 2x4 a moderate wack.

Then go back to work doing stuff with it.

Its not rocket science

I am the Sword of my Family and the Shield of my Nation. If sent, I will crush everything you have built, burn everything you love, and kill every one of you. (Hebrew quote)

Never got in the habit of doing that, going all the way back to when I was a boy with a handheld drill motor. The key for the press normally lives on the magnet on the side of the head, or on the workbench when I'm in the middle of doing operations.

I've always scratched my head at why a guy would leave a key in a chuck, but that's just me.

Jon

I got a new arbor and chuck from Little Machine Shop for the drill press and the mini lathe both. Both keyless. The short arbor works perfectly in the mini lathe and gives me more than an inch of extra travel on the tail stock when drilling. It pops out just like it is supposed to when I retract the tail stock too. The regular one with chuck has even less wobble than the one from the mini lathe on the drill press. Of course I spent the entire afternoon looking for one of my cans of cleaner in the shop. I have a quart can of denatured alcohol around somewhere... I guess its time to clean and organize the shop again. LOL.

I think I'll use the freezing trick to remount the chucks on the arbors, but now that I know the quill/spindle itself on this drill press is not horrible I can see myself doing other things with it. Things that might require being able to get the arbor out of the drill.

Thanks everybody. This was an awesome thread.