****** - Verified Buyer
4.5
Hold Fast makes decent products that are also reasonably priced compared with some of the other vacuum chuck suppliers. The only problem I've had with Hold Fast and it has occurred on both this 8" chuck and a spindle extension I bought around the same time is that the female spindle threads were not properly machined making it very difficult to mount them to the lathe. The 3" and 6" chucks I bought last year did not have the same problem. Fortunately, I already had spindle thread tap for use when making wooden jam chucks or other jigs and fixtures for my lathe. Since the Hold Fast items are aluminum and the tap is steel I was able to use the tap to chase the threads solving the problem pretty easily. If i didn't have the tap I would have almost certainly given this product a lower rating as it required significant force to mount it to the spindle and even more to remove it. I don't have a problem with any of my other chucks or spindle-mounted tooling so the problem is definitely with the machining from Hold Fast. The spindle washers included with the tooling provide an adequate vacuum seal so that shouldn't be the reason for the tight threads.
