Milling Cutter Chuck Video.

I have not done this with previous videos but as the item this time has had a major effect on my later working life, and retirement, I think some will find it interesting, maybe surprising.

At the age of 56 I obtained my first milling machine, being one of the earlier mill/drills, and supplied with a drill chuck, end mills, vice and a facing cutter.

I needed T nuts so they were the first project, but had not got far when I noticed the surface being created was lowering. My reaction was, surely the machine is not that inaccurate, such was my ignorance of using a vertical milling machine. However, it did not take long for me to realise the cutter was being pulled from the drill chuck by the cutters helix, and that I would need to purchase a chuck designed specifically for milling cutters.

That idea was soon shelved when I found that a chuck would set me back about £100, my surprise being due to the large mill drill costing me around £600 whilst five small pieces of metal were to cost me £100. All that was irrelevant as there was no way I could afford the cost.

The only option was for me to make a chuck. I soon found that to make it I would also need a fixed steady, this therefore being added, together with some other items, to the list of things to make.

About a year later, I was involved in a car accident, not my fault, the other driver just preferring my side of the road and was off work for 7 months. For something to do I sent an article about the chuck to the Model Engineer magazine, not knowing that the Model Engineers' Workshop had recently been started where it was passed on to.

The editor liked the article and asked if I could provide more, so I wrote articles for the other things I had made with five appearing in issue 5 of the magazine. As a result of these, and that the editor felt unable to continue when the number of issues a year was increased, I was offered the job of editor.

You can see from the above, that my ignorance of using a vertical mill and a car accident has had a major effect to my retirement years, for the better I would add.

As to the actual cutter chuck, the subject of the video this time, I am still using the one I made some 26 years earlier, but have made a larger one to the same design to take 16mm shanks. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gW2a6iPWUh0

For the page on my website with more details or the chuck can be found here Milling cutter chuck for end mills having threaded shanks. 1
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Whilst talking history perhaps I can mention that the page “My Working Life” has finally been finished. Some will be aware I often comment that I have worked as an Electrical control system engineer for all my working life but have now owned up to the fact that I spent my teenage years designing press tools, drilling jigs etc. No doubt this is where I gained my ability to design tools using off the shelf materials. It was though 65 years ago.

The page is at My Employment

Harold Hall