New Atlas 8" lathe chuck

John Conroy · Mar 7, 2018

I have been looking for a new 8” lathe chuck. I was originally going to buy a Phase II D1-4 direct mount chuck from Travers.ca as they sent me a discount coupon by email. When I logged onto the site and put the chuck in my shopping cart it showed that I was getting a 26% discount to $332 off the retail price of $449. When I went to check out the price reverted back to retail. I clicked on the “talk to a sales agent” button to start an online conversation. The agent basically told me I didn’t qualify for the discount and even though I talked to a supervisor on the phone, they blew me off. I expressed my frustration (politely) and didn’t complete the purchase. Lesson learned, I won’t dealing with Travers again.

A few days later I got a sale flyer from KBC and they had flatback Atlas chucks on sale for $388 with free shipping for orders over $350 and under 50LBS. I ordered one and then ordered an Accusize D1-4 backplate from Amazon to get the free shipping. My thought was even if it wasn’t straight I could machine it in place on the lathe. When the chuck arrived it turned out to be a front mounting chuck instead of the rear mount shown in the flyer. I wasn’t sure if that would cause me a problem or not until the backplate arrived but I let the sales guys at KBC know and he told me if it was a problem I could return it.

When the backplate arrived I first set it on the spindle of the lathe to check the fit onto the taper and it fit like a glove, no lateral movement but still sitting flat against the flat surface on the front of the spindle. I installed the D1-4 pins and remounted it to check the radial runout. I indexed it the three different ways and found it has almost no measureable run out. I wasn’t expecting that from Accusize. I had to machine the center projecting nose to the back plate from 6.573” as it was suppled down to 6.300 to fit the chuck recess and at the same time I took a skim cut off the mounting face to make sure it was flat. I left the nose of the backplate at 6.3005” for a slight interference fit into the chuck and then drilled and tapped the 3 holes for the mounting bolts. I set the backplate out in the -20 degree air for 30 minutes then it dropped right on the chuck and I torqued up the bolts. When mounted to the spindle I put a ¾” end mill in the chuck and measured the run out. It measures a little under .001”. Pretty impressive for an inexpensive chuck. I emailed Tyler at KBC and let him know the chuck worked out great and he still offered me a discount on my next order to make up for the incorrect listing in the flyer. I’m very happy with the customer service at KBC!

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John Conroy · Mar 7, 2018

PeterT · Mar 7, 2018

That's an awesome TIR spec. Its great when things work out, price & performance. That combo would be 2-3X the cost from a NAm or Europe country of origin. Sometimes you get lucky with the Asian stuff, sometimes it works the other way. But IMO you can see steady quality improvement over the years on average.

Re Travers, I don't order a lot from them because I generally find their prices higher. But they have some lines you cant get at KBC or elsewhere as readily. I do have an account (its free). I just placed an order the other day & e-flyer sales price was reflected in the cart. I have had instances where some USA discount flyers were not reflected on sale in Canada, but I've also seen cases where they were. Which is odd because they source from USA for whatever is not stocked in Canada. Too bad you got the runaround. Maybe order a drill bit from them & you will be confirmed (oh wait, 12$ shipping!).

I tried entering your SKU to see if I could add to my cart, but its no longer showing sales price.

Dabbler · Mar 7, 2018

great videos - and congrats on getting a superb deal!

RobinHood · Mar 8, 2018

Looks like a very good purchase! Nice work.

John Conroy · Mar 8, 2018

Thanks guys. I'm happy that this chuck buying experience ended up positively. It started poorly with my experience with Travers. I'm really surprised at the high quality of the Accusize backplate. Most of the previous Accusize stuff I've bought has been mediocre in quality and I actually returned 2 items because the quality was so bad. Maybe they are carrying better quality tools lately or perhaps, as Peter suggested, I just got lucky.

I have a very similar front mount 8" chuck on my Super Spacer that was made in Europe and it has almost no run out, I didn't expect the same performance from an Asian chuck. Time will tell if it stays this good but for now the .001" or less run out is repeatable every time as long as the chuck is tightened with the same pinion. I tried all 3 and using the one adjacent to the Atlas label gives consistently .001" or less run out. In the chuck manual the specs say it will deliver run out of .003" or less when tightened with the "nominating pinion". I get .003" or less when using any of the 3 but there is definitely one sweet one. My old 6" chuck shows this same characteristic with one of the pinions delivering the lowest run out. I have it marked on that chuck.

Tom Kitta · Mar 8, 2018

Travers has issues - I got last year a 688 Kurt Vice from them for just over $600 /w shipping or so & they over charged me. I had to go through CC company to get it resolved - but I got full refund. I kept a screen capture of the final receipt & that killed the case.

I did send them an email explaining their website programming problem but I doubt it ever reached any programmer on their end. They simply don't have multi country stuff programmed well. Their original was just US - expanding that to multi-country is a hit / miss. Same with Grizzly.

This could be the reason for re-occurring constant issues with pricing.

PeterT · Mar 8, 2018

Very true. You also have to be mindful of item(s) weight. For example, the KBC $8.95 flat fee only pertains to under 50 pounds. If its a heavy item like a chuck or vise that tips the scale, extra freight charges come into play which is understandable. Sometimes they revert to a different carrier. I think KBC told me Canpar when I was looking at granite plate. Then, adding to potential confusion is vendors that operate on both sides of the border & the different 'heavy fees' are not comparable. In the Travers paper catalog now I see many * meaning exclusion to Canada. So best to call or check beforehand, its the 'all-in' costs we ultimately pay. I've seen some interesting things on Amazon that you know is heavy & yet inexpensive to ship with Prime, go figure.

Tom you mentioned Grizzly, I wasn't aware they had Canadian representation like Travers. is that what you mean, or just ordering/importing from them in general?

Tom Kitta · Mar 8, 2018

When you go to Grizzly they now display Canadian pricing - but they have a bug when you go and do "product compare" it reverts to US$ - I sent a note to the webmaster but instead CSR responded totally missing the point.

They just have two warehouses in the US so I doubt they open one up in Canada besides they are 1h south of Vancouver by car - they just modified their site to offer global shipping. Fun fact, they ship all over the world... except China

Grizzly is great BTW as far as parts goes - they have lots in stock and most (all) recent Chinese Taiwanese machines are clones of each other.

kevin.decelles · Mar 8, 2018

+1 for kbc service and experiences. Quick, fast, but slightly over priced. If I need it now , kbc , otherwise I shop it around

Kurt vices very overpriced there, I will be driving to USA to pick one up when I do

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Dabbler · Mar 8, 2018

+1 on KBC. I buy all my grinding wheels there. Always a little more $ (a dollar or 2), they have stock of almost everything and delivery is cheap and quick.

BTW allindustrial.com says they will sell a D6 vise (the latest and greatest, apparently) for 539$ US with free shipping to Calgary. They want me to use a US broker, which is wierd, so I have yet to find out the broker fees.

Tom Kitta · Mar 8, 2018

They may have their own broker they use - same as Grizzly has their own broker - everyone is afraid of UPS service more than of fire. I use borderbee.ca

PeterT · Mar 8, 2018

Is borderbee for mere mortals or companies with GST#, BN etc.

kevin.decelles · Mar 8, 2018

If u get a final all in number on the d6, I may be interested in getting in on that.

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Tom Kitta · Mar 8, 2018

Borderbee is for regular pp - no need for advanced stuff - after all it is legal to operate a business under your own name.

They are way, way cheaper then UPS... like just over $10 + duty (for tools from US it is 5% GST)

New Atlas 8" lathe chuck

John Conroy

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