Bison 6 1/4 chuck installation questions

Duh! Yeah, maybe I should have expounded on my personal philosophy. Mind you, this may or may not be in keeping with the teachings of some, nor does it necessarily apply to those that have mastered the skills of tool and die making, where filing used to be very much a necessary part of making such items. The tool & die makers of today no doubt rely on CNC to accomplish the more difficult of tasks, although my absence from the trade since 1983 may be exposing my lack of understanding of current events.

There are problems with filing that are difficult to overcome unless one has considerable experience. One of them is taking material off uniformly. Having worked as a precision grinder, and experienced how the typical part came off a machine, it became readily obvious to me that any kind of hand work was a mistake, particularly when close tolerance was involved. What I found was that surfaces were rarely, if ever, a constant diameter, nor were they round, regardless of grandiose claims by many, including those with considerable experience. From that, I concluded that the very best way to accomplish a close tolerance turn was to permit the machine to do it, or when that failed to be an option, to resort to abrasive cloth, which was the least aggressive of all the options, and most likely to yield the desired results.

I agree that there may be instances where filing works, but I avoid it as much as possible. I worked in commercial shops for 26 years, non-stop, primarily in the defense and aero-space industries, where work was well inspected. 16 of those years included running my own business. To me, files are for deburring, and little more. I concentrated my skills on running machines, so I don't claim to have any particular manual skills. Others certainly may have a different school of thought, but I'd enjoy placing their work in a grinder, where the wildest of claims can be quickly verified.

Harold

LOL. I think you have to be of the "start your apprenticeship with a cubic foot of cast iron and a file, by the time you have reduced it to the size of a tennis ball the old-school master will approve your project" sort of outlook.

Once somebody's gone through that drill they do seem to think they're superman with a file. What they do with a centerless grinder after that is open to evaluation though.

Jim

I certainly agree when it comes to machining a precision surface (as if my novice opinion means anything).

But there are valid uses for applying a file to a turning workpiece (beyond deburring). For example, I have yet to build a ball-turning fixture for my lathe. Therefore, when I want to render an external spherical surface, I simply make a series of step cuts (using x^2 + y^2 = z^2 calculations) to create a rough profile, and then apply a file to remove the high points, thus yielding my nice ball end. For non-precise applications like this, a file is indispensable.

- Michael

Yeah, I also do that. Small radii on shaft ends, too. Don't even bother to make the calculations, preferring to work with a template (radius gage) , instead. Maybe I should have said that using a file for a straight, precision surface is stupid, which I think it is. Even those with considerable skill can't guarantee the outcome. Truth be known, I use a file a lot more than I imply, but never for straight (precision) work.

Harold