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I've been "restoring" this old but gold Craftsman drill press that I've had sitting for over 10 years and never used. I am hoping to machine some lowers with it (it's a collared chuck style, don't worry). I finally got to the point where I could measure run out, and the original made in USA Jacobs 633c chuck had a ton of wobble... so much so that it was easily visible. This ol' chuck has seen some abuse. Being stubborn, I tried to drill with it anyway to see what it'd do... and it's no good for "precision" work.
After a lot of back and forth thinking about how to fix my wobbly shaft problem, without bending over and taking a loss on the whole drill press itself... I discovered that the local Grainger had a Jacobs replacement in stock. What a time to be alive. Unfortunately, it's made in China... but, for the price and to bring this drill press back to it's former glory, I will succumb to the will of the global economy.
Got it home and installed fairly quickly. I was skeptical because of all horror stories I read on the 'net about poorly manufactured chucks, but pleasantly surprised by how well it measured out. Less than 0.006" TIR... if I did the conversion right, my gauge is metric, reads 0.15mm.
As a bonus, it also came with a nicely fitting chuck key... made in China as well. Matches my metric indicator.
(BTW, I ended up with two of these nice Noga stands/metric indicators... expect to see a FS post soon to fund this latest purchase lol)
-Robert
After a lot of back and forth thinking about how to fix my wobbly shaft problem, without bending over and taking a loss on the whole drill press itself... I discovered that the local Grainger had a Jacobs replacement in stock. What a time to be alive. Unfortunately, it's made in China... but, for the price and to bring this drill press back to it's former glory, I will succumb to the will of the global economy.
Got it home and installed fairly quickly. I was skeptical because of all horror stories I read on the 'net about poorly manufactured chucks, but pleasantly surprised by how well it measured out. Less than 0.006" TIR... if I did the conversion right, my gauge is metric, reads 0.15mm.
As a bonus, it also came with a nicely fitting chuck key... made in China as well. Matches my metric indicator.
(BTW, I ended up with two of these nice Noga stands/metric indicators... expect to see a FS post soon to fund this latest purchase lol)
-Robert