Last week I needed to drill some .030 holes with my Deford lathe. Top speed on my lathe is only about 1200 RPM, much to slow for driling .030 holes.
I was able to program the lathe to Peck drill and I got the job done. When the job was done I was thinking a high speed spindle would be nice to have around the shop or better yet one that would mount on my lathe toolpost.

This is what I came up with stuff I already had around the shop:


I had that Albrecht chuck mounted to a 1/2" arbor. In the pic the arbor is mounted on R8 bearings. The gizmo doing the driving is actually a Foredom Handpiece #44. The Foredom Handpiece is a spindle driven by an AC motor by a 4' flex cable. I did not see a real good way of mounting the chuck directly to the foredom spindle and have it run concentric so I came up with this technique. The added bonus is I can still remove the Albrecht chuck and arbor and use it somewhere else. This setup is quite robust as well.

I can also remove the chuck and arbor and install a DA300 collet chuck for small hole grinding.

I used some R8 bearings I had on hand. They are not high speed bearings so I'm not sure how they will work out over time. I have no idea how often this high speed spindle will get used.
Close up of spindle

I made a video of the of the high speed spindle working and the lathe
pec drilling. I used high feed rates to make the video short as possible.

Click here to see it run

The Foredom Handpiece remained quite cool after a couple of runs but the Albrecht chuck was a little warm. Not sure if the heat came from the O-ring drive belt or the R8 bearings.

I ordered a couple of Johnson DC electric motors off Ebay yesterday. I would like to eliminate the AC motor and flex drive cable. My concern is cross-talk between the high speed AC motor and the stepper motors on the lathe. I have seen it happen before. The little Johnson DC motors with make the high speed
spindle setup more self contained. Johnson Electric Powerful Motor - 24VDC - 10000 RPM | eBay

Would a flat belt run cooler?

Where can I buy high speed bearings? Jim