Which drill chuck to use for a Sieg C2 lathe ?

Which drill chuck do I use for the Sieg C2 lathe ? I know it has a MT2 taper but there seem to be two different type of ends available and I am not sure what each is used for. I want to be able to drill holes in flywheels by mounting the drill chuck in the tailstock.

Here are the two types :

**LINK**

**LINK**

NOTE : I made a mistake in the main title of the question. How do I correct this ?

Edited By Brian John on 14/06/2014 05:06:14

Hi Brian,

The small C2 lathes have a short tailstock mandrel so a Mt 2 arbor with tang may be a bit too long. So the chuck in your second link may be shorter. The arbor without a tang is intended to be used with a drawbar. Many users cut off the rear part of the MT 2 arbor, see here (scroll down). You may have to cut off the MT 2 arbor anyway, I have cut the tang off both MT 2 and MT 3 arbors. They were just case hardened so I used a carbide tipped tool to turn through the hard part.

Thor

Edited By Thor on 14/06/2014 06:17:41

Little Machine Shop has a drill chuck (#1148) with a short abor but it does not list the Sieg C2 as compatible although many other mini lathes are listed. Do they sell the Sieg lathes in the US ?

**LINK**

> Do they sell the Sieg lathes in the US ?

Yes, but they are usually badged for the seller, a long standing tradition with lathes of all provenances!

Neil

Okay, I must admit that I am a bit confused here as I have not had a chance to use my lathe yet. I am currently building the workbench for it now.

1. Please explain the use of the drawbar and how it works ?

2. How do you get the drill chuck out of the tailstock when you are finished ? I should image that it would be jammed in there very tightly !

3. Are the drill chucks and live/dead centres only held in place by the friction of the taper and nothing else ?

Sorry for what seem like some very dumb questions.

Hi Brian

!. The drawbar is typically for milling machines because the vibration of milling can unlock the taper. It just a big bolt that pulls the tapers together.

2. If you wind the tailstock back to its retracted position when you get to 0 the internal threaded bar SHOULD release the taper. there are different lengths of taper so can happen before 0, if a short taper it wont release.

3. Yes.

HTH

Cheers Michael.

Hi Brian,

A drawbar (also called draw-in bar) is typically used on a milling machine to clamp a milling chuck into the milling machine spindle, there is an explanation here, scroll down to "Removing and Installing Milling Cutters".

If you fear that your chuck arbor without tang is to short to be ejected from the tailstock, just screw a short screw into the threaded end of the MT arbor.

Thor

Edited By Thor on 20/06/2014 08:29:18

No, I was worried about the opposite ie. that the arbor will be too long. As you pointed out on 14/6/2014 above, most of the arbors will be too long for the Sieg C2 lathe. But in view of what you have said, I think too long an arbor is better than too short.

I think I will go with the arbor without the tang ; the second one on my original posting. That way I can also use it on a milling attachment should I purchase one in the future.

Edited By Brian John on 20/06/2014 10:48:01

Edited By Brian John on 20/06/2014 10:49:39

Isn't a 16 mm chuck a bit too large for a C2? My largest chuck, for a much bigger lathe, is 12 mm.

Regards, HansR.

If you look at the centre that is supplied with the lathe you will get an indication of the length required. According to the Arceurotrade catalogue, tooling for the C2 and C3 are interchangeable, they show a I - 10 mm Jacobs type chuck, with an aror threaded for a 10 mm draw bar. Ian S C

A 13mm or 1/2" chuck is a good size for a C2. You can drill up to 13mm diameter with ease if you take it in stages. A 16mm chuck s probably over the top.

Neil

But given a choice between 1-13mm and 1-16mm, why not choose the latter ?

The tail stock centre which came with the lathe is 78mm long over all.

Might this  this 1-13mm drill chuck be more suitable ?

http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/390861218123?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649

Edited By Brian John on 20/06/2014 13:55:35

Just a personal preference but I wouldn't go for the 16 mm one on that small lathe. On my 5" lathe I use 1-13 mm and a 0.5-8 mm keyless chucks. The keyless type are much more convenient (no key to loose) and hold well, the only time they come loose is when gripping a tap and reversing to wind it out. For drills bigger than 13 mm I use taper shank drills which has the advantage of less overhang.

Russell.

When I bought my lathe, second hand new, somebody had put the draw bar arbor, no tang, into the tailstock I had to put the barrel into the freezer for a couple of days and the I had to rapidly heat up the barrel so that it would expand away from the arbor allowing it to be removed.

Martin P

The 13 mm chuck would be as big as I would go, if need be you can either get drills with 1/2" shanks, or the shank of a HSS drill is soft enough for you to turn it down to size. A Jacobs 34 would be about as good as you get, but a good eastern make is quite adequate . You don't want one that is too long, you have little enough space between centres

Our friends at ARC supply screw-in tangs - see HERE so, providing the threads are the same, you can have the best of both worlds! I do agree though that 13mm capacity will be quite big enough in your lathe.

Norman

What is the tang used for ? I thought it was to stop the arbor from turning but, as has been pointed out above, the friction of the taper does that.

Are all arbors threaded in the end to take a tang ? Is there one common thread for this ?

Edited By Brian John on 22/06/2014 04:45:28

Hi Brian,

the tang is not used to stop the arbor from turning, as said that is taken care of by the friction between spindle and arbor. The tang is there so you can remove the arbor from the spindle of a drilling machine using a drift. In my drilling machine the spindle isn't hollow, so you can't use a drawbar. When I lower the quill a bit a hole becomes accessible, you insert the drift into the hole and whack it with a copper hammer to remove the chuck arbor. Have a look here.

The threaded end - for arbors without a tang - have different threads. In my metric world MT2 are threaded M10, MT3 are threaded M12. I don't have any "imperial" MT arbors but I think 3/8 x 16 is used on some.

Thor

Yes, 3/8 Whitworth. My Chinese mill came with that size drawbar.

Russell.

You could get a MT 2 blank with a 3/8" UNF thread to take a smaller Jacobs chuck, maybe ex an old power drill, I say old, because the newer ones have a pressed sheet metal sleeve, and don't have the gripping power of the old ones with the solid, machined ones have. Ian S C