Has anyone successfully used a wood lathe chuck for light-duty metalworking? I'm looking for minimal height on a rotary table to provide more Z axis clearance on my milling machine.
- posted
4 years ago
Has anyone successfully used a wood lathe chuck for light-duty metalworking? I'm looking for minimal height on a rotary table to provide more Z axis clearance on my milling machine.
Has anyone successfully used a wood lathe chuck for light-duty metalworking? I'm looking for minimal height on a rotary table to provide more Z axis clearance on my milling machine.
I just recently saw a video were somebody was considering a wood working lathe chuck on a rotary welding table. I don't see where it wouldn't work with appropriate concessions and care when setting up jobs.
Since no one seems to have used one, I will throw in my outside opinion: I think that the biggest possible problem is that the stock may not be held parallel to the axis. I.e., it may be tilted to a degree acceptable to a woodworker, but not a metalworker. Even if you reground the jaws, the grind might only be good for that diameter.
I'd be threading the back 1-1/2 - 8 to fit a BS-0 dividing head and an adapter I made for my South Bend. Probably the face would end up drilled and tapped for studs to clamp gear blanks after the jaws centered them. A cheap wood chuck seems better for my first attempt at butchery but I don't have one to examine, to see if the center hole can be opened to 1.5" and if new jaws can be fitted.
The model for this is a faceplate with four removeable jaws that mount in radial tee slots, which I saw in an old book. The gear blank mounts on spacers that allow turning the OD and both faces of the edge, and the jaws only center it and then are removed, they don't control wobble or need to be strong enough to resist cutting force.
In that case, you could true up the face on the lathe and everything would be nicely aligned
Unless it has tee slots like the wood lathe chuck, which would become tapered. I'd clamp the stripped chuck body to a trued faceplate to thread the spindle hole.
This was prompted by difficulties fixturing and remachining hubs that adapt bicycle sprockets to the 3/8-16 threaded rods that lift the head of my sawmill. These hubs fit in a Sherline 4-jaw on a 5C mount but the total indexer height left little room to mill and drill the hubs.
LMS sells a 5C mount for small metric chucks. I put my 6-jaw on one.
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