I recently acquired an old lathe and I installed a cheap 4 jaw center chuck on it. But to tell you the truth, there is not much dancing room and I am either going to catch a knuckle and loose a finger or bump my elbow on it. I thought about making a guard from expanding metal, but I am looking for an alternate to that in possibly installing a collect chuck. Like I said, my space is already limited and I thought a collet may give me a little more area and less worry of a chunk of iron showing me the business end of my finger or hand. In short, does anyone else use a collet and would it be a feasible solution. The thread coming from the lathe is 3/4 X 16 TPI. I keep finding expandable collets for bowl making. I saw a dremel style collet in the pictures in the library and looking for something of the same nature. Any suggestions?

[www.rodbuilding.org]

Garey I have two Beall collet chucks and one from Penn State Ind. and use them way more than I use my four jaw chucks. Do a search for Beall lathe tools and you should see the sizes that are available. Match it up with mandrels from 10" to 14" and you could make any combination of grips and sizes you want. You can see and try it out when you come over to pick up your items that I ordered for you.

Collet chucks are the most precise, certainly more so than you'd need for any rod building operation. But if you want them, try Grizzly Industrial Tools. They'll have a set to fit your lathe.

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Thanks Lance & Tom, I will check it out.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2012 11:34AM by Garey Elkins.

A large Jacobs chuck is really easy, precise and simple. I think you can get them as big as the ID of your spindle.
JC

That's a great idea as well, and probably less expensive.

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These Taig accessories all work well on a 3/4 X 16 headstock. Note the various collet type sets.

[www.taigtools.com]

or:

[www.positiveflow.com]

If you look at item 1052 - which is the full circle jaw set for the three jaw chuck, you will find that this style set of jaws almost totally eliminates the "banging the finger" issue.

i.e. there is a virtual circle of spinning metal, rather than the bars that is the case with the common 3 and 4 jaw chuck head design.

I use the Taig 3-jaw chuck with the associated full circle set of jaws and find that it works very well for holding the work with little concern for banging fingers.

I also have keyless chucks which chuck into the mt - hole in the head stock. I have a similar keyless chuck which plugs into the MT hole in the tail stock of the lathe. I also frequently use both of these chucks for various turning chores. These keyless chucks are particularly nice when it comes to doing things like turning butt caps. etc.

The keyless chucks are similar to these from Penn State industries:

[www.pennstateind.com]

For example, if you want do do some center boring, these keyless chucks work very well to hold a bit in the tail stock while spinning the work piece to insure a perfectly centered hole in the work piece.

Good luck
Roger

p.s.
When your lathe is fully rigged, you will have spent several times the original price of the lathe for the accessories to make it the perfect working tool for you.

I use a very compact collet system that uses ER20 spring type collets. It's the safest thing I have found, and gives you extra working room.

Got mine from one of the wood crafting web sites, and it threads on to the 1"-8 thread.

Good Luck,

Marc

The Jacobs chucks I was referring to, hollow body spindle nose chucks, are no longer being made, so they would have to be found in the used market, too bad.
JC

They were also 1 1/2 X 8TPI which fits SB, Atlas, etc



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2012 09:35PM by Jon conner.

I am thinking this might fit the bill and it has the 3/4 16 adapter.

[www.woodturnerscatalog.com]

Garey,
A set of Colet chucks will work just fine if you are working with standard mandrels etc.
But if you are working with rod or handle stock of irregular sizes, you will still have good use for a variable size chuck.

Good luck
Roger