Machine tool productivity and part surface quality are fundamentally limited by chatter occurring due to regenerative type self-excited vibrations. Efficacy of the existing high-fidelity chatter models to help avoid chatter in real industrial settings remains limited due to the uncertainties in machine tools. To help validate models without the vagaries of the uncertainties and without damaging real machine tool systems, this paper discusses the use of a mechatronic hardware-in-the-loop (HiL) simulator that offers a platform for investigation on chatter. The HiL simulator is a hybrid system of hardware and software components substituting the actual cutting tool-workpiece interaction through an actuator exciting a flexure by an emulated real time cutting force. For the simulator to faithfully represent the physics of the process-machine interactions, experimentally characterized stability behavior with the HiL must necessarily follow model predictions. However, the transfer between the hardware and the software layers of the HiL simulator involves inevitable delays that result in diverging stability behavior. We hence present systematic investigations to identify and compensate the delay in the hardware layer on account of the actuator and the transducers, as well as delays in the software layer on account of signal conditioning. The validated HiL simulator is then used as an experimental platform to investigate the effectiveness of four different control strategies for an active damping system. Being a non-destructive, cost-effective and repeatable platform, the HiL simulator opens up further possibilities for validation of high-fidelity chatter models.