Help me pick a chuck

[Mikey]

OK, I don't have a chuck yet for my lathe and would like to investigate getting one. The most I can spend would be $200 tops. The use at first will generally be pens. I would like to just hold the mandrel with the chuck if possible, but it seems that the jaws on most don't do 1/4", so I may go with the beall chuck for those. the other pen use would be holding the blanks for drilling since the setup would be self centering. Other possible uses would be stoppers and in the future, perhaps small bowls and plates.

I can get the Talon chuck for $160 plus $17 for the adapter to 1"x8TPI. I think I would still need a different set of jaws to hold 3/4 blanks though, so the price is up there. are there any other more economical chucks that will produce very accurate results with stuff like pen turning?

 

[mrcook4570]

For pens, you really don't need a scroll chuck. Nor do you need one for stoppers - just need a drill chuck there.

Now for plates and bowls, I've heard a lot of good things about the Talon.

 

[KenV]

I have a talon on the taig with the No. 1 spigot jaws. For bowls and the like it is very handy. I use it with a center to rough turn odd shaped pieces of wood (One end in the talon and the other on the live center. Turn about and inch round at the live center and swap ends and remount with the round section in the jaws. By doing this the point for the live center can be anywhere on the blank (as in off set) and the blank can be trued round on the selected centers.

There are lower cost chucks from PSI/Woodturningz with the auxilary jaws for under $100.

You do not need a chuck, but they are handy...

 

[arjudy]

I use the Teknatool Super Nova Chuck and love it.

 

[DWK5150]

I use a talon and have all the jaws for it. Works wel for me.

 

[loglugger]

Mikey, check out Penn State Barracuda 2 key chuck system 154.95 includes #1, #2 #3,jaw sets, pin jaws and screw chuck. Been hearing good things about it. I am not affilated with Penn state.
Robert Lee

 

[Deere41h]

You might also look at Grizzly. They have a VicMarc copy for about $100.00 and pin and Dovetail jaws for $19.00 each. I have both the VicMarc and the Grizzly and use them both interchangeably. Grizzly is not a bad chuck for the money. Check out the attached link.

http://tinyurl.com/bvz8f

 

[Borg_B_Borg]

A scroll chuck is not the best thing to use to hold a pen mandrel. Yes, with the right jaws, it's possible to hold a pen mandrel using a scroll chuck, but you can expect quite sizable runouts with it, not to mention that you can easily hurt your fingers if you accidentally bump them into those protruding jaws that are spinning at high RPM.

If you want to economize, a regular pen mandrel with a #2 morse taper is the better way to go.

A drill chuck can also be used to hold a mandrel, but the cheap ones (such as those from Harbor Freight or Grizzly that cost less than $10 apiece) generally have very large runout (>0.008"). The $32 Taiwanese-made Golden Goose brand drill chuck with a morse taper fit that is sold by Woodcraft has low runout (<0.003") and is perfectly decent for the money.

If you want something that has very tight tolerance and ultra low runout (<0.0005"), you'll need to use a collet chuck, either a Beall(in ER-32 format) or an Axminster (in ER-20 format).

Note: the runouts being discussed only refers to that portion contributed by the chuck in the headstock, be it a drill chuck or collet chuck. Your mandrel or live center can each contribute more runout still even if you happen on a collet chuck or drill chuck that has no runout.

Steve

 

[Rudy Vey]

Originally posted by Mikey
<br />OK, I don't have a chuck yet for my lathe and would like to investigate getting one. The most I can spend would be $200 tops. The use at first will generally be pens. I would like to just hold the mandrel with the chuck if possible, but it seems that the jaws on most don't do 1/4", so I may go with the beall chuck for those. the other pen use would be holding the blanks for drilling since the setup would be self centering. Other possible uses would be stoppers and in the future, perhaps small bowls and plates.

I can get the Talon chuck for $160 plus $17 for the adapter to 1"x8TPI. I think I would still need a different set of jaws to hold 3/4 blanks though, so the price is up there. are there any other more economical chucks that will produce very accurate results with stuff like pen turning?

Spend your money on a collet chuck if you want to use it mostly for pen turning anyways. On the other hand, if you want to turn bowls etc, get a Super Nova chuck that is on sale often at Woodcraft for about $ 160. For the rest of your $200 get a Berea Drill driver mandrel holder, for this money you can get both with an A and B mandrel.

 

[KenV]

I reread the original post -- holding a mandrel in a scroll chuck is like carving with an axe -- crude approach that a few can get a fine outcome with, but most end up with firewood.

I use the collet chuck approach (comes from the machinist world) for precision. Scroll chuck is great for grabbing blanks and for roughing work, grabbing bowls, etc.

I expect you will find better precision with a collet chuck and turning a stub tenon than with a scroll chuck for drilling, especially with small blanks and large drill bits. (Large blanks and small bits are not an issue regardless....)

Steve has it well captured.

 

[MDWine]

I purchased a SuperNova II this past weekend, but haven't used it yet. I got the adapter for the Shopsmith spindle to go with it.