Drill press chuck won't tighten on 1/16" bit

[Joevano]

I have an old Homecraft benchtop drill press my sons gave me for X'mas a couple years ago.

Today I tried to chuck a 1/16" bit but can't tighten down on it. Is there something I can do to get the 1/2" chuck to work?

 

[rlitman]

Many 1/2" chucks will not close onto a 1/16" bit. Sorry.
A 3/8" chuck will.

 

[sharkytm]

Swap out the chuck. I've got 4 for my big drill press. 14N and 18N ball bearing chucks, and two much smaller ones that I can hold teeny bits with.

 

[zkling]

Is there a number on the chuck? Something like JT33 and then something else. If so, what is that something else?

 

[thebeekeeper1]

It will increase your runout a bit, but you can get a little chuck that has a spindle to chuck up in the big one. That's much easier than getting the chuck off of your machine.

 

[Joevano]

The chuck is MC-33

 

[neophyte]

For chucking small bits inside a large chuck, you'll need a pin chuck, or a small precision chuck with a straight shank that can be chucked into the larger chuck.

 

[skruft]

Correct - mine will hold the small bits, but when I had one that would not, I got a 1/4 chuck with a shaft that went into the large one.

 

[theknurl]

and this is why I chopped the spindle off my old Royal press then turned down a #2 Morse extension socket and welded them together, changing chucks takes just seconds

sometimes I change for drill size sometimes for chuck clearance issues

 

[Outlawmws]

The chuck should list it's capacity range on the side. many 1/2 are 5/64 - 1/2 so anything 1/16 or smaller and you are SOL for a direct chuck up.