Cowells / Sherline chuck key

[DurhambuilderParticipant @durhambuilder]

I have Cowells 3 jaw chuck made by Bison which is missing the key. They are available new for about £60 however I would like to make one. I can ascertain most of the dimensions but can’t really work out how many teeth the key should have. Online photos (below) suggest six but my crude working out gives eight or nine. Does anybody have one and able to count the teeth for me? Many Thanks

[Roger WoollettParticipant @rogerwoollett53105]

Mine has eight teeth.

 

[HollowpointParticipant @hollowpoint]

Mine also has 8 teeth. If you need any other measurements I can get them for you. 🙂

[DurhambuilderParticipant @durhambuilder]

Great, thank you both, very much appreciated.

[HollowpointParticipant @hollowpoint]

No problem. Let us know how you get on. I know these are hard to find but £60 for a chuck key is criminal!

[Alan Wood 4Participant @alanwood4]

My Cowells 90ME three jaw chuck uses a 12 tooth chuck key.

When I broke a tooth on it I modelled it in Fusion and ran a 3D print to check it worked OK.   I placed on order on PCBWay for a tool steel 3D printed version.   Minimum order was 5 pieces and the carriage cost more than the five keys. I advertised the excess on EBay and all sold.   I periodically check with the buyers to see if they still work OK and have survived and the answers have been positive.  If there is sufficient demand I could repeat the order but the price still works out at around GBP50.

See my blog waffle https://www.altrish.co.uk/2023/07/17/replacement-cowells-chuck-key-part-2/

[HollowpointParticipant @hollowpoint]

Alan. I remember you making the batch of keys, but IIRC the ones you made were for the Cowells/toyo style chuck. The one pictured above is for the later Cowells/Bison chuck. Just thought I would point that out to avoid confusion. 🙂

[Alan Wood 4Participant @alanwood4]

OK, noted.  Didn’t realise they were two types of chuck in circulation.

[DurhambuilderParticipant @durhambuilder]

The fruits of an hours work earlier today. This was supposed to be a trial run but it works pretty well with no discernible slack in the chuck. The pinion was cut at an assumed 10degrees with a single point cutter found in a miscellaneous scrap tool box which looked about right. The centre pin was pressed in to the end of the key and trimmed back five thou or so at a time to ‘set the mesh’. At the end of the day it wouldn’t work on a big ten inch chuck but for a small 2 inch chuck it will be fine. 

[Colin HeseltineParticipant @colinheseltine48622]

Mine has 8 teeth, but currently I cannot find the chuck that goes with it.  Is is possible someone could post a picture of the chuck to remind me exactly what it looks like.  I have a feeling it may be mounted on an adaptor for my Aciera F12 but I cannot see it around.

thanks,

Colin

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

How big is your workshop Colin?

[Colin HeseltineParticipant @colinheseltine48622]

Big enough to lose lots of things 🙂 🙂

 

[Graham MeekParticipant @grahammeek88282]

Soba do a 70mm diameter chuck which works on the same principle. I would suspect the chuck key from this source will be considerably cheaper.

Regards

Gray

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