Hi Folks,
I am in the process of grinding the jaws of the original 5" 3-Jaw chuck ( Logan #431) for my 10" Logan lathe (SN 6774A, 1952, Montgomery Ward). Pl ease see my question about grinding the OD of the jaws in a separate post.
In the meantime, I ground the ID of the jaws in an interesting way that m ight be of interest to the group. The outside-grip jaws seemed to have a d iameter of about 1" originally, but they were badly mangled, and stock was so far out of true I had to shim it just to take a rough cut. So I set up a tool post grinder and chucked a 1" diameter piece of stock in the jaws t o pre-load them against the scroll.
One normally builds a jig to hold the jaws in the pre-loaded position, bu t I did not want to go through that effort. Alternatively, one could clamp a thin disk near the bottom of the jaws (deep in the chuck) but I still wa nted to grind the entire length of the jaws clamping surface.
So, here's the part for which I am probably going to go to hell: I crazy
-glued the jaws in place. I knocked the piece of stock out with a rod (eas y to do because the jaws are bent and worn) and then ground the jaws true. After grinding, I just broke the jaws free by turning the key, took them out and scraped the dried glue off with a razor blade. Easy as pie, and it worked great. Now I just need to figure out the OD needed on the outsides of the jaws (see my other post) and I will probably repeat the crazy glue process.
As long as I don't use too much glue, a bit of force is all that's requir ed to free the jaws, but if they get stuck, heat and acetone should also wo rk to loosen the glue.
So, hope this trick is of use to others.
Dan