Hydraulic Chucks Clamp in Three Turns

Big Kaiser’s hydraulic chucks for Swiss lathes are toolholders that use a single wrench, which provides a quick change of the cutting tools on a gang slide. Often used for mass production of small items, Swiss lathes have many fixed and rotating tools in a narrow space, making it difficult to replace a cutting tool inside the machine. To minimize machine downtime and provide operator safety, the chucks use a hex wrench that is said to require only two or three turns for both clamping and unclamping.  

To maintain repeatability, once a hydro-chuck is centered, the runout is said to not vary, even if a cutting tool is changed repeatedly. Runout of fewer than three microns at 4x diameter can be achieved. High-precision cutting with these chucks is achieved on the automatic lathe with a clamping range of 4 to 8 mm. According to the company, the chucks are long-lasting, maintenance free and the rigidity is improved by the short projection length and dual pressure points. These chucks have a standard pipe thread for coolant-through connection and are available for most Citizen and Star machines with ¾" (22 mm) straight shank.