Well, well... Surprised again. Because the chuck came in packing grease, all the parts were tossed in the solvent tank then cleaned with 90% alcohol then, lightly lubed. It operated like a totally different piece of equipment. Very smooth. Next step was to fit the backplate to the spindle.
Two words of caution:
1) When working really close-in to a spinning chuck, watch your clothing, fingers... -all body parts.
2) NEVER insert a D-type backplate in a spindle without having the lug locking bolts installed. If you do, that lug can spin when you tighten it and it will not come off w/o taking drastic measures. See the pic...
Those little screws MUST be installed to prevent the lug from spinning.
Right out of the box and to the credit of the manufacturer, the plate is too tight. If it were too loose, give it away to someone with a bigger spindle. The cams are tight and you can see in the image the tiny light-gap between the spindle and plate. Hopefully it renders here on this website. Anyhow, that's a no-go! It must sit perfectly flush when the cams are pulled tight.
How to fix it: Easy!
In my case, based on experience, I estimate the tapered hole is about 2-4 thou too tight. Take a file or some kind of sharp scribe and scratch a radial line in the taper that is about 1-2 thou deep. If you're so inclined, put some dykem on there. Next, mount an existing shop chuck and grab the new plate from the bore.
Next, take a stick and some rough sandpaper and open-up the tapered hole. Use your good senses to be safe and also use a little finesse to maintain the tapered angle. I was spinning about 300 RPM.
After 3 tries of taking it off, re-installing the lugs (AND lug lock screws), I got it nailed pefectly. When I put a little love on those locking cams, the backplate sits flush and an indicator shows absolutely no runout that I can see. The factory that made this, did a good job. It's flat on both sides.
Next, the body was bolted to the plate. Before tightening the screws, the body was indicated until it ran with no perceptible runout. In reality, that appeared to be within a total of 1/2 thou using a TDI.
Next, the proof shaft was mounted and then came the surprise. At the jaws, it was +/- 1 thou. At 18 inches, it was +/- 1 thou. Mind you, I did nothing at all to the jaws other than clean and lube them. I have a video of it but, the system is complaining about the file size. If there's a way I can upload it, I will. It's only 1 minute long.
Finally, upon close inspection, this chuck can be converted to a set-tru in "no-brainer" fashion. I will do it some day soon on this chuck but before then, I'll post a PDF image of the modifications to make. It's all but trivial.
