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Min 0mm drill chuck

clarnibass

Aluminum
Joined
Dec 23, 2015
Hi

I'm looking for a drill chuck with a minimum grip of 0mm. OK... 0.1mm is fine... but it's either 0mm or 0.5mm...

The good ones that I've found locally are Rohm. I have a chuck from them and the local distributor is good. Anything else is pretty unknown quality. I've only ever used keyed chucks (except on electric drills, etc.) and the only min 0mm chucks I see are keyless (keyed ones start at 0.5mm).

Rohm has the Spiro (about $170) and the Supra (about $80). Anyone with experience with those? Is the extra for the Spiro worth it?
They are available in various max diameter grips, is there any difference other than the max diameter?
I'll be using drills about 0.3mm to 0.9mm with this chuck, with the very occasional (i.e. almost never) smaller drills.

Thanks
 
I have Albrecht keyless 15J0 chucks for holding drills under 1.6 mm. They are highly regarded in the USA and probably other places. I have larger size Rohm Supra and Spiro chucks that are nice. You pay more for better concentricity.

Watchmaking pivot drills are made in different styles and can be very small, but they have uniform large diameter shanks and rather short drilling depth. Circuit board drills also come in many sizes, but always have 1/8 inch shanks, so no need for tiny chucks, and the Albrecht 30J0 or 30J1 are considered the best choice.

The picture shows some old USA pivot drill sets that go down to .004 inch (.1 mm). I also have some Swiss pivot drills which cost more.

Larry

Flatbits 2.JPG
 
Carbide PCB drills can be had in very high number drill sizes and very affordably and come on a 1/8 or 3mm shank. Maybe they're suitable for your application.

Edit:
Looks like post #2 beat me to it
 
Do your .3mm - .9mm drills have same-size shanks, or are they on 3mm or maybe 1/8" shanks? Most of the high-quality small drills I have are on upsized shanks.

.3mm drill on a .3mm shank would be a snakey little thing for sure.

Regards.

Mike
 
Thanks.

I have both same diameter shank drills and larger diameter shank, the latter mostly with 2.35mm for my dental micromotor quick change collet. For certain jobs I need to use the regular drills, it is actually using their flex as an advantage. The larger shank drills are better for certain things but more likely to break.

I have been using something like that pin vise but maybe it's just not a good one. Too much hassle to get it to grip and it's accuracy isn't that great. Is it a good idea to hold a knurled texture shank like that in a drill chuck? Or I guess a collet is better. Looks like they are knurled to make it better for holding with your hand. How accurate can I expect a knurled hand be when gripped? The Starrett 0-1mm pin vise is only $20 it seems so basically nothing in comparison with getting another chuck. I just have to find something like that locally.
 
I have not had a problem with gripping the knurled surface. The bit runs true by eye at least. When I am doing any precision drilling I always drill to a center punch anyway so "precision" is not really an issue. I am just looking for something to hold a tiny drill and at least have something that runs true to the eye.
 
Thanks.

I have both same diameter shank drills and larger diameter shank, the latter mostly with 2.35mm for my dental micromotor quick change collet. For certain jobs I need to use the regular drills, it is actually using their flex as an advantage. The larger shank drills are better for certain things but more likely to break.

I have been using something like that pin vise but maybe it's just not a good one. Too much hassle to get it to grip and it's accuracy isn't that great. Is it a good idea to hold a knurled texture shank like that in a drill chuck? Or I guess a collet is better. Looks like they are knurled to make it better for holding with your hand. How accurate can I expect a knurled hand be when gripped? The Starrett 0-1mm pin vise is only $20 it seems so basically nothing in comparison with getting another chuck. I just have to find something like that locally.

No not a good idea to grip on a knurl. There are pin vises made with a ground shank section specifically for chucking. I would second tbe Albrecht chuck recommendation and add that you don't need a keyed chuck at all. (Sounded sort of like you really wanted one in O.P.). The tiny drills don't take much torque to turn.
 
Albrecht or Llambrich miniature drill chucks are the business for small, straight shank drills. Basically the more complex the name, the better the chuck, so "Jones drill chucks" are right out.

Sometimes you can trim down the drill shank with a cut-off wheel to shorten the stickout. And spend some time getting the arbor trued to the chuck, with small drills (especially carbide) runout matters!
 
Albrecht or Llambrich miniature drill chucks are the business for small, straight shank drills.
Thanks, do you have a link for that? Struggled to find this on the Albrecht website. I couldn't find a local distributor yet, but it's a very known company so I'm guessing there must be one.
 
you don't need a keyed chuck at all. (Sounded sort of like you really wanted one in O.P.). The tiny drills don't take much torque to turn.
I'm just really used to keyed chucks but yeah, I don't mind a keyless chuck for this... maybe even starting to prefer it for these small drills now that I'm thinking about it...
 
Thanks, do you have a link for that? Struggled to find this on the Albrecht website. I couldn't find a local distributor yet, but it's a very known company so I'm guessing there must be one.

Here's a link to a vendor: http://www.royalproducts.com/img/category/upload/Albrecht_Drill_Chucks.pdf Go to page 6 for the small chucks.

The 15-J0 is for 1.5mm and smaller drills, the size above will do 3mm - 1/8" shanks. Both are excellent, but pricy.

If you would consider Llambrich, I have some of their 0-3mm chucks new at less than half the retain price, if that's of interest PM or email me. Here's a general link, but the ones I have are J1 arbor taper, not J0

https://www.amazon.com/Llambrich-Pr...JKP-30-J-1&qid=1563551585&s=industrial&sr=8-2
 
It may bear noting that a very good quality pin vice (Starett etc.) can hold any very small drill and easily be chucked.

That would be Bergeon. Not Starrett.

And yes, "but".

If/as/when one REALLY has to work to "zero"? All solutions are consumables. "Fragile", as it were.

One of the tiny sizes of ER, straight shank "chuck" plus "several" collets might serve, too. Less costly to pop-in a "fresh" consumable portion.
 
One of the tiny sizes of ER, straight shank "chuck" plus "several" collets might serve, too. Less costly to pop-in a "fresh" consumable portion.

Once you get down to ~.020"/0.5mm, I think a precision keyless chuck is a better choice than an ER collet system. Albrecht or Llambrich, either should work well, and maybe Rohm too.
 
Once you get down to ~.020"/0.5mm, I think a precision keyless chuck is a better choice than an ER collet system. Albrecht or Llambrich, either should work well, and maybe Rohm too.

Albrecht never lighted any fires, here. Too damned LONG.

LLambrich I have the first one of (thank you, John Welden for the heads-up..). Their "Hybrid" keyed/keyless. Probably go to my grave still preferring that line.

I've use the Bergeon trick - having begun with Starrett and found it wanting - ever since hearing aid factory days - where we actually NEEDED such - once gone beyond the - what were they? Jacobs # 0?... on our Adolf Muehlmatt and Hamilton DP's. ISTR Dumore used the same chuck?

All I had "personally" was a Walker-Turner or a lathe, each with a Jacobs that was too crude ...

BUT.. lest we forget - gripped "ordinary" drill sizes better and didn't lose precision as fast as a "clear the way down to zero" chuck.

I did say "consumables?"

:)

PS: if Rohm still makes decent drill chucks they surely have done a good job of hiding that. All I've seen for years were on shoddy goods as lowest-bidder OEM, and were not out of place.
 
OK seems that the local Royal distributor (Noga Tools) is a distributor for albrecht too. I'll check them. A question is whether it's worth about $450 as opposed to the Rohm Spiro $170 (or even the cheaper Rohm). I like better tools as much as anyone... and sometimes even buy better than what I truly need just because it's nicer to work with. This is a type of job I need to do about twice a year, but I need to be able to do it, and I've been less than happy with using a pin vise so far...

I can't find a 0mm or even 0.1mm minimum drill chuck on the Llambrich website... not even for their micro drill chucks.

BTW on the Albrecht website, as far as I can tell, they list those chucks as minimum 0.2mm. Unless those are not the ones? They don't have that model number listed for some reason.
0.2 - 3.0 mm: Albrecht Germany - simply the best
Found this also: "The inherent design characteristics of a keyless drill chuck may prevent the jaws from closing down to absolute zero.Albrecht guarantees a minimum gripping diameter of 0.008" for model 15 Keyless Drill Chucks, and 0.015" forModels 30–100 Keyless Drill Chucks. If you need to grip a smaller diameter, please contact us at 1-800-645-4174."
 
My Unimat DB-200, the original, not the SL, came with an Emco 1/4" chuck that goes down to about 0.020". It has a metric thread mount, M12 x 1.0. I have used it with drills smaller than #60 on a number of occasions with no problems. No visible runout. It is also labeled with "E66".

Unimat bragged about their ability to do small work that ordinary lathes could not so any original equipment chuck for one will probably close to better than a #60 drill (0.040"). All Unimat chucks will all have the metric threaded mount (M12 x 1.0).

You may be able to find one on E-Bay.
 








 
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