Bought a $60 used hydraulic chuck for my lathe instead of the $400 new one, and I'd do it again

Ruby Kelly · 2026-10-10T16:40:03.597719+00:00

Everyone on the shop floor said I was nuts for putting a used chuck on my old Haas SL-20, and the new one from the dealer was $400 plus two weeks of waiting. I found the used one at a machine tool resale place outside Cleveland for $60 cash, took it apart on the bench, and the jaws had maybe 0.002 runout, which is fine for the bracket work I run. Six months in and it still holds tolerance on 500 piece runs of 1.5 inch aluminum standoffs. The guys who swore I'd wreck parts have quietly stopped bringing it up. My take is most of us swap tooling way before it's actually shot. Curious if anyone else runs used workholding or am I just cheap?

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Bought a $60 used hydraulic chuck for my lathe instead of the $400 new one, and I'd do it again | CNC Operators - Thought Shares