cleaveland quick-change bits

tmbg · Post by **tmbg** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 4:51 pm

I made the mistake of stopping by the cleaveland booth saturday, and I grabbed some good edge formers, a REAL vixen file (never seen one before!), some more boelube and torqueseal, and they gave me a catalog.

So, while I'm sitting on the flightline waiting for the show to start, I was leafing through the catalog (BIG mistake!)

I went 'holy crap, I have to have those quick change bits!' and sprinted the thirty miles or whatever back to their booth (we were up by the warbirds, looong way to trot) and bought the quickchange bits. I also got an extra quickchange chuck for some reason, and a huge assortment of the screw bits that angle drills use. No clue why I bought those either, I don't have an angle drill. I get carried away when I'm buying tools...

Anyway, the idea behind this gadget is you unscrew the chuck off your drill and screw this quick-change chuck on in its stead. It has collets for #30 and #40 bits, 1/4" collets for a 1/4" drill and countersink cages, and I believe a 3/16" and 3/8" collet. These all have 3/8" shafts that have holes drilled in them, and the chuck has a snap collar, so you just jam whichever tool you want in the chuck and it locks in place. Pretty handy. It also came with a shaft that's internally threaded to hold those threaded drill bits, and one with external threads that the original drill chuck will thread to, so you can snap your keyed chuck back in for anything that doesn't fit one of your collets.

The kit is like $138, but definitely seems like it will be worth it.

HOWEVER:

Last night when I went to install it, I thought that the idea was you put the threaded drill chuck holding gizmo in your drill's existing chuck, and screw the quick change chuck to that. This is probably hard to visualize, I apologize... I was a bit confused as to why that shaft was drilled to work with the quick-change, and then I was REALLY IRRITATED when I realized that the shaft was 3/8" and my drill chuck is 1/4"!

After a bit more research I figured out that it's designed to replace the whole chuck. Now I have to figure out how to remove the chuck! I talked to cleaveland, and they said they generally tend to lay the drill on the edge of the bench and put an allen wrench or something in the key hole, and hit that sharply against the direction of rotation. The impact will take the chuck off.

I'm gonna try that when I get home, I'll report in!

tmbg · Post by **tmbg** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 7:39 pm

Well, I'm back to report that you need to go WITH the direction of rotation! Going against tightens it. A couple good whacks did indeed have it spinning freely, and I was able to remove the chuck and install the quick-change version.

My initial impressions are that it works as advertised; I didn't put a ton of torque on the drill collets, and if the bit hangs up while drilling, you'll have the bit stationary while the rest of the stuff spins. Also, it makes the whole rotating assembly a good bit longer, and I get a considerable amount of runout.

ptrotter · Post by **ptrotter** » Tue Jul 31, 2007 8:53 pm

I have been using the QC chuck on my drill for several years and would not use anything else. It is so lightweight and takes up a lot less space when you need to get your drill into a tight corner. It is also very fast to change bits. I have found QC drill bits and countersink cages on Ebay and only use a drill with a standard chuck when I cannot get a QC drill the right size. I have some of the Cleveland adapter collets and have found that some of them are out of true and cause the bit to wobble. I have a few old ones I got on Ebay and they are perfect. Fortunately I have most of the standard size bits with QC shafts.