Raglan vertical milling machine 2MT chuck removal

Hello all,

Can anyone help with a "stuck chuck"on my Raglan miller? I bought an ex-school miller and was puzzled about the Osbourne Titanic chuck fitted as it didn't seem to function correctly. All has been revealed recently when I managed to acquire a replacement chuck off ebay with all the component parts easily seen. It then became apparent that the locking sleeve on the chuck fitted to the miller had at some time in the past been installed the wrong way round resulting in the thing becoming completely wedged in the chuck body. All attempts at removing this from the chuck have failed up to now, including my making an expanding internal collet to pull it out and so think I will admit defeat and replace the chuck with the ebay chuck.

The second difficulty is the chuck itself seems really stuck tight on the 2MT taper. I have tried several sharp blows on the end of the drawbar to release it, but no movement so far! Any advice on removing the chuck or the sleeve welcomed please! I'm worried about damaging the spindle bearings if I keep wellying it with increasingly heavy hammers!

Thanks

Robin

Have you seen the U shaped wedges advertised by one or two advertisers on this website? It might help also to warm up the spindle by running it for a while.

Depending on the gap between the actual spindle end (not bearing at end of quill) and chuck you may be able to find a spanner that will go in there over the MT2 arbour. The spanner can be used as a lever without involving the bearing but of course don't apply much pressure as it shows up the poor quality of your spanner.

Next if you still need to resort to bashing it put two plates of the thickest that will fit it the spindle/chuck gap mentioned above supported each end onto the bed with the quill wound down or the bed up to fully support the spindle not on its bearings. Bear in mind your ashing will now stress the table elevation screw instead so lock table if you can. If positioned with quill then don't lock but hang weight on feed handle to bias it down.

Remember to never put a cold arbour into a warm (been running) spindle and always loosen the chuck straight after use while warm even if you are going to use the same one again soon.

Thanks for your advice Bazyle, not sure about the u shaped wedges but I'll look into it. No space at all to get to the 2MT unfortunately, but really sound advice about supporting the bearing whilst bashing thanks! Vaguely remenber your advice about loosening the chuck after use from a long ago apprenticeship!

Robin,

My method is a bit major but did work and will need the spindle removed and put in the deep freeze for a few days, remove and heat the spindle, not the chuck and hopefully it will expand away from the chuck tang which followed by a sharp tap will remove it. I did this to my lathe tailstock which when I bought it had a tang less chuck stuck in it.

Martin P

hi u shaped wedges like the photo

ty Kevin

No matter how tightly I put an mt taper into a bore, if it isn't supported the vibration would shoogle it out when milling on a lathe

So try milling some scrap from the side with a slot drill, not too fast etc and with no support on the tip of the cutter, but make sure the tip only drops down a teeny bit if the MT2 loosens and the chuck drops

MT tapers are useless unless the tip has support, this is why they need a drawbar

(i.e. Don't use the drawbar, plus no tip support, and the MT taper should fail when side milling)

Edited By Ady1 on 04/08/2012 18:24:50

thanks for all the advice, checked out u shaped wedges but cannot get near the MT as it is buried in the headstock. I'll try the side machining advice also to worry it out.

Cheers

Robin

Arghh just realised that I cannot use the cutter due to the other problem of a wrongly inserted locking ring which prevents cutters being mounted correctly! Looks like I'll have to get this ring out first...back to the drawing board.... I'll try to devise another method of drawing the ring out using the expanding collet device I've tried previously, then if successful I'll hopefully be able to lock a cutter in to release the MT!

Looks like a chicken and egg problem!