I've had various drills over the years without problems as I recall (apart from never being able to find chuck keys before hand tightened chucks).
Currently my cordless is a Ryobi CDI-1801 18.0v
However much I tighten the chuck by hand bits still slip at times. Any tips (apart from replacing the drill)?
TIA for any ideas.
Completely separate. I tend to scrape screws across a soft bar of soap before use to reduce friction as they go in. I saw a thread fairly recently where somebody suggested something better. Can someone remind me please?
I've had similar problems and found that "washing" the chuck out with several squirts of WD40 can sometimes help. You can end up with all manner of fine debris building up in the chuck especially if you do any masonry holes and this sometimes prevents the chuck from tightening fully on the drill bits or from opening the chuck fully. Worth a try.
Candle wax rather than soap, as soap encourages rust (and hellish iron stain on oak!) in the future.
Candles should be the stump of some decent quality hippie stuff, ideally scented, as that's an indication they're actually paraffin wax (or beeswax). If you use cheapies (esp from Ikea, esp white ones with a coloured overdip, esp. tealights) they're made from cheaper stearin instead of parafiin wax. This is too hard and tends to fall off your screws before you've inserted them.
Better drill: chuck quality does vary, and it's one of the things that improves on better (more expensive) drills. Roehm is usually OK, but Ryobi's genius is in value engineering down to the point where it still works, but it doesn't half piss you off while you're using it.
Better chuck. There are two designs of these, one-handed and two- handed mechanisms. One-handed are apparently better, but I'd have to find the 2-year old(?) copy of Fine Woodworking that had an excellent review article on this. Again, more money gets you th egood stuff.
Straight jaws. Don't bounce the drill on its nose.
Clean jaws. Don't fill the chuck with grit. If you have and it's an old keyed Jacobs, you can strip it and clean it, re-packing with grease. If it's modern, you can't practically do this. If it's known to be full of grit, then flush it clean with carb cleaner / parts washer / ultrasonic tank and then re-pack it with Finishline XC aerosol bike chain lube (solvent loaded, so it goes in, then turns sticky and greasy). Finishline XC is one of the best waterproof sprayable lubes I've found and I use it everywhere - good for most locks too, expecially levers or padlocks. Note that greasing a modern keyless chuck can ruin it - some parts rely on having friction - so this is a bit of a last resort.
Hex shanks rather than round shanks. Apparently that helps, if the chuck is marginal.
Round shanks. If you've spun a drill and raised a burr, then file it off.
Soft, grippable shanks. Hard shanks (weird drills, cheap golden drills) are inelastic, thus hard to grip.
One comment worth mentioning on one handed (and I agree they are noticeably better), is you can't retrofit a one handed chuck to a drill not designed for it, since the drill must have an automatic armature lock. Otherwise the shaft would just turn when you tighten the chuck.
Many drills work that way, and seem to work ok with no armature lock. You get more tightening force if you a) set the drill to low speed gearing b) yank it tight quickly
not really upto masony hammer drilling though, for which a lot more tightness is needed. Dont do a whole lot of that now though, due to sds.
If you dont get the chuck sorted, just replace it, only a fiver.
A number of years ago a colleague kept going on about his wife's horse have a squeaky penis. (Couldn't decide how much of a wind up it was.) Never heard him mention WD40 though.
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