Bread
Aluminum
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2013
- Location
- Ballard, WA
I picked up a Carlton radial arm drill for my new shop. It doesn't have a hollow spindle with a knockout rod like the Summits I used to run. With the Summit you simply rotate the quill upwards quickly against the ejection pin/rod and it would drop the tool right out (most of the time). The Carlton I have has a solid spindle, and requires a drift to remove the taper. This is obviously slow and cumbersome when you don't have three hands. I know there are ways around it such as lowering the tool down to the table over a block of wood, but it's still much more time consuming having all those tools to juggle. I have one of those LFA auto drifts and that works ok too.
However and in any case, the drill did come with a Collis Magic Chuck. I have an assortment of morse taper collets, and tap driver collets.
I've been using this system for a couple weeks, and it is pretty slick. That said it's also a very sloppy system. Trying to pick up a center punch mark accurately is a real pain. Measuring quickly with dial calipers I'm seeing .020" clearance between the chuck body ID and the collet OD. For tapping it's been great... sort of a floating tool holder. I use an ER40 to MT4 collet chuck for small taps. Bit hard to see past the chuck compared to a Collis split taper tap holder, but much more universal system for around the shop.
For drilling I've been using twist drills so far from about 13/16 to 1-1/4". They work fine once the full diameter of the cut engages, but until then there can be a lot of chatter due to the play in the collet, and the fact that the collet drive balls fall into slots that are elongated. Those slots make it easier to snap the collets in, but that 30 deg of radial slop might be an issue.
I'd like to tool up this machine with a drawer of indexable spade bits rather than setting up a huge twist drill index against the wall, and buying a big Oliver drill pointer, which takes up even more shop space. But I'm not sure this Magic chuck will play well with a spade bit system. They seem to like a rigid setup in my experience. Should I ditch the Magic Chuck and find a more rigid quick change system for my Carlton? It's got a MT4 taper.
However and in any case, the drill did come with a Collis Magic Chuck. I have an assortment of morse taper collets, and tap driver collets.
I've been using this system for a couple weeks, and it is pretty slick. That said it's also a very sloppy system. Trying to pick up a center punch mark accurately is a real pain. Measuring quickly with dial calipers I'm seeing .020" clearance between the chuck body ID and the collet OD. For tapping it's been great... sort of a floating tool holder. I use an ER40 to MT4 collet chuck for small taps. Bit hard to see past the chuck compared to a Collis split taper tap holder, but much more universal system for around the shop.
For drilling I've been using twist drills so far from about 13/16 to 1-1/4". They work fine once the full diameter of the cut engages, but until then there can be a lot of chatter due to the play in the collet, and the fact that the collet drive balls fall into slots that are elongated. Those slots make it easier to snap the collets in, but that 30 deg of radial slop might be an issue.
I'd like to tool up this machine with a drawer of indexable spade bits rather than setting up a huge twist drill index against the wall, and buying a big Oliver drill pointer, which takes up even more shop space. But I'm not sure this Magic chuck will play well with a spade bit system. They seem to like a rigid setup in my experience. Should I ditch the Magic Chuck and find a more rigid quick change system for my Carlton? It's got a MT4 taper.