Shortest drill chuck?

[Gary Fisler]

I have a Jet midi lathe with a Nova G3 chuck. I want to drill blanks on the lathe but dimensions are going to be tight. I need a very short drill chuck to make this work. I noticed that Penn State Ind has one with a 1/2 tailstock that looks like it would work.

Any suggestions? What do you use?

[FDR]

I use a drill with a #2 Morris taper shank. Fits directly into the Jet tail stock and no chuck is required. The drills are available anywhere machine tools are sold. I get mine from MSC.

Fred

[Gary Fisler]

Fred,

Thanks for the reply. I checked MSC and found some taper shanked drill bits. I was looking for brad point but they are not available with tapered shanks. Do you use the standard 118° drill bits?

Gary

[FDR]

Yes I use the standard bits. I start the hole by drilling the blank with a center drill first.  That gives the big drill a centered spot to start.  Tip:  Make sure that each end of the blank is square before you start.
https://www.harborfreight.com/center-drill-countersink-set-5-pc-60381.html
https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/01520402?fromRR=Y

Fred

[Gary Fisler]

Thanks. Got the drill bits on order. Will stop by Harbor Freight next week when I'm off graveyard shift for the centering punch.

[Kirk Malmo]

Don't think I will help OP at this point, but for anyone else reading I found a quick fix.

I have a drill chuck that is about 5" from end to end not including the taper. Add 3" of drill bit and that is a long distance. It also seems to be slightly off center from the time I got it new. But perfectly centering anything over a distance of around 8" is difficult.

I also bought a pen mandrel that came with a morse taper and collet that was built to hold the (I think 17mm) mandrel. Its not made for it, but that collet holds a 1/4" drill bit perfectly and is what I use to drill my inserts. It only sticks out about 1" from the tailstock plus however long you want your bit to stick out from there.

The only downside is the size of the collet pretty much only allows you to use it for that specific purpose, but I can still use my drill chuck if I don't need as strict of tolerances.