Keyless Chuck for Drill Press?

[Alan Lightstone]

I have the Woodpeckers drill press table with a drawer, so the key is always right in reach. I've thought of purchasing an Albrecht, but have never gotten around to it.

[Mike Goetzke]

I just put an Albrecht keyless on my drill press. It is self tightening so I tried to just tighten it lightly but I needed couple wrenches to remove a 2-1/8” Forstner bit. It does have close to zero runout but what is the advantage of keyless if you need 2 wrenches to loosen the bit?

(maybe I’m just doing something wrong???)

Think I found the issue. If I use twist drills I can easily open the chuck by hand but on a big Forstner bit no way. Probably a function of the self-tightening feature.

[Michael Schuch]

The Röhm keyless chucks come in 2 different series - Supra and Spiro. The Spiro series are on par with the Albrecht and Jacobs chucks and priced accordingly. Supra-series chucks are considerably less expensive and probably more than adequate for manual-feed hole drilling in wood.

I have a couple of Rohm keyless chucks I picked up used for use on my milling machine. They grip very well and have very little run out for nice true holes.

For my drill presses I prefer keyed chucks. Even my Walker Turner drill press has enough run out that the extra precision of the Rohm keyless chucks don't make a difference. Spending a lot of money on a high end precision keyless chuck to put on a drill press that has even the slightest little bit of slop in the spindle is a complete waste of money in my opinion. You don't need a high dollar high precision Albrecht keyless chuck to hold a drill bit securely on a drill press. A lower end keyless chuck will be just as secure but with an undetectable bit more run out that would be impossible to notice when drilling wood... or even most metal drilling operations on a drill press. Save the high end precision chucks for the milling machine and don't waste the money on a drill press.

I keep my drill press chuck keys on the end of a retractable metal chain like a janitor would use for his keys. It keeps the chuck key at hand but still out of the way.

https://www.amazon.com/Key-Bak-Origi...6&sr=8-10&th=1

I have never had a problem with gripping any sized drill bit with any of my old American made Jacob chucks. The cheap plastic keyless chucks on the low end Dewalt cordless drills are junk. The all metal keyless chucks on the upper line of Dewalt cordless drills have always worked great for me. My Milwaukee 110v "Hole Shooter" hand drill has a ratcheting keyless chuck that works great. The ratcheting impact like action of the chuck really tightens and holds well. No one I have known has used the ratcheting type keyless chuck and are pretty clueless as to its operation... as I was when I bought the drill 30+ years ago.

When I first got my Delta VS drill press it had a little spring loaded nub on the end of the chuck key to eject it from the chuck. I HATED THAT! I remove the spring in the chuck key and it works "properly" now.