Which 1 1/4x8 Collet Chuck

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southernclay

southernclay

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Sep 6, 2013
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Dawsonville, GA
Wanting to get a collet chuck to fit larger lathe, I've been using an adapter but think I will be selling my smaller lathe since I haven't used it and sell some of the tooling as well.

CSUSA has both the Beall and Apprentice Version. Both prices are the same with the current promotion and the apprentice has collets. I will most likely end up buying a full ER32 metric set anyway so not sure how much that would help to have the standard collets that come with the Apprentice version.

Anyway, looking for opinions, anyone used both?

https://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/...Piece-Set-with-FREE-$10-Gift-Card?term=collet chuck

https://www.woodturnerscatalog.com/p/101/1194/Beall-Collet-Chuck?term=collet chuck

Thanks!
 
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I had the apprentice for my old lathe. It was happy with it, but when I bought my new lathe, I upgraded the collet chuck to the Beall. It is a better chuck no question.
 
I've got the Apprentice collet chuck -- can you explain for me how the Beall is better?

There's one thing I can see right away (it has a lock screw to make it safer to run the lathe in reverse), but I'd like to know in what other ways it's an improvement over the Apprentice.

Thanks!
 
duncsuss said:
I've got the Apprentice collet chuck -- can you explain for me how the Beall is better?

There's one thing I can see right away (it has a lock screw to make it safer to run the lathe in reverse), but I'd like to know in what other ways it's an improvement over the Apprentice.

Thanks!
Click to expand...

I have the same question. I have the PSI version which like the Apprentice chuck has a knurled ring which is great for mounting without using tommy bars to tighten.
 
I had a few collets that didn't seat correctly in the PSI. Now it could have been a combination of the collet & the chuck since the collets are not high end. I think someone else did a runout test awhile back, and the beall was better. I will say the PSI version was adequate for what I used it for.
 
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I have both. Run out is the same on my lathe.

Use one on each of the lathes.

Style differences. But did not grab the knurling to slow down the spindle.
 
I've had the PSI for a few years now. I was happy with it until recently when the holes somehow got stretched out by the tension bars. I usually don't tighten it down that much, but I figured the collet steel was as hard as the tension bars.. I guess I was wrong...
 
My large lathe is a Record / Rikon / Woodfast in 1-1/4x8. Due to the high import costs of the Beall chuck into the UK I took the alternative route of buying an MT2 ER32 collet chuck and a set of 19 collets off eBay. The total cost was less than that of just the Beall chuck withou collets. I even purchased an MT1 chuck for around $20 so that I can use these collets on my small lathe.

Tony Wells.
 
Just out of curiosity I put the MT2 ER32 collet chuck that I use with the tail stock on the head stock and measured the runout....not as good as the thread mount Beall but within a thousandth or two. good enough for what we do.
 
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