Quick Release Chuck

[williamr701]

I am having trouble with my quick release chuck. When my machine had 20 or so hours on it the chuck failed to close completely. Carvewright replaced it. Everything has been fine until now. My machine now has 60 hours on it. I check my machine every 15 min or so to make certain that everything is ok and to clean everything up. During a carve tonight, on my first inspection of the machine the bit was loose. I removed the bit, the bit adapter was bernalled, Dented). I replaced the adapter and started the carve, on the next check, the same thing, the adapter was bernalled. The chuck is clean, oiled, and when the bit is installed, I hear a click, check that the red lines match up and check for looseness. As far as i can see i have created two boat anchors out of my adapters. Don't want to make any more. Can anyone help?

[fwharris]

William,

First off welcome to the forum and secondly sorry to hear you are having problems with the QC. This has been a hot topic of late and there are several post on the QC. If have not done so take a look at these:
http://forum.carvewright.com/showthread.php?t=10189

http://forum.carvewright.com/showthread.php?t=7905

Even though you say you have cleaned the QC, your problems most likely are do to not being clean enough. You will need to replace the dented adapters and very possibly the QC.

Hope you do not collect enough of the dented adapters for a real anchor for that boat

[Billions]

That can be frustrating, I've had that happen as well. There was just a thread about this very problem a few days ago, where many people offered a lot of good tips:

http://forum.carvewright.com/showthread.php?t=10189

The general consensus is that with the 'quick-change carving bit' and the 'quick-change chuck' combo, if one starts to wear and get damaged, it will wear and damage the other. So it can quickly render both useless: using a new QC bit in a damaged QC chuck can 'bernall'/wear out the QC bit, making it wobbly and unusable. On the other side of the coin, using a damaged QC bit in a new healthy chuck can damage the new chuck.

If I were you, I might consider putting a pause on carving, calling LHR and ordering a new QC chuck and a new QC bit, along with the QC removal kit (a small, square socket-wrench attachment and flat wrench), replace the old parts with the new ones when they arrive, and avoid using previously damaged QC bits in your new chuck. Also assure you have correctly seated the QC bit in the chuck; it's not difficult to insert the QC bit to a degree where it feels like it's in, but yet is still loose enough to cause damage or get damaged. After each carve, clean and lubricate both the QC bit and the inside surfaces of the QC chuck.

As I mentioned in the other thread, (and I'm certainly not the expert on this, I'm just saying this has helped MY carving experience) I tend to rotate my use of carving bits to avoid this, but I also check for signs of wear after each carve.

[williamr701]

Yes, I am planning on ordering new bit adapters and a new chuck. I understand that a taper fit requires an absolute clean surface on on each mating piece to fit snug. I have read all of the material on the qc chuck and adapters. I follow the instructions to the letter, clean and lightly oiled every bit change, check and double check the adapter bit/chuck engagement (make certain that I hear a snap when inserted and visually check the lines on the chuck with a mirror). This has worked well for the last several carves, but on this last carve I trashed two adapters. Just like to know what happened to change things. Thanks for any info.

[williamr701]

Well, I called support, I ordered a new qc and adapters. Had to pay for the qc because they don't warranty it. I don't blame them, wouldn't do it myself, too much to go wrong during instillation and usage on the customer's end.

Removed the old qc, cleaned the spindle shaft with a wire brush on my dremel, and cleaned the qc and spindle with alcohol. Put a small drop of loctite on the spindle and assembled. Checked the run out with a dial indicator and got .005...don't think that is good. Need to call support tomorrow.

Cut the plastic off of my old qc to see what happened to it. Found small chips in the detent slot where the screw is. This would not let the collar engage the bit. Tried to get it out with my pick set. Anything that I have that is short enough on the "L" end to get in there, won't get anything out and with the plastic off I can see what I am doing.

I checked the static balance of the old qc with a lawnmower blade balance. If it was a blade I would not have used it. Checked the new one, much better, but as crude as this is , you could tell it was off some, red line side low side. When cut the plastic off of the old one I see why...they must not compensate for the metal removed for the slot. Looks to me this would effect balance. Still don't know why the new one balanced better than my old one.