Problems with PSI 4 Jaw Chuck?

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PSNCO

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My son came to me stating he couldn't tighten up a blank in his Utility chuck with the pen chuck jaws. I looked at it and it was free moving for about 120-180 degrees and then just seemed to stop with resistance as if there was grit or grime in the chuck. I don't remember this issue when new 5 months ago. I blew it out with air and didn't help. We can get the chuck to tighten around a 3/4" round blank and we finally got it open enough for a 1" square blank, but that was it. I would think this chuck with the blank chuck should open larger?

Is the chuck working right or should I be calling PSI about the issue and a possible replacement?
 
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Pretty sure that is the same one I have. Comes with 4 sets of jaws and the pen blank jaws also fit on it and is around 3 to 4 inches across? Mine tightens down until the jaws touch and opens about 2 to 3 inches. Sounds like it may be having some issues. I don't know if you can take it apart or not.
 
The utility chuck can be disassembled. If you drilled a lot of pen blank using the pen jaws, there is a good chance that there is debris inside causing the stiffness. I've encounter the same problem before.
 
The principle of Occam's Razor probably applies here - the simplest explanation of the problem is most likely the correct explanation: it sounds like it needs cleaning.

Lathe chucks in general accumulate dust, and that's a particular problem with chucks on wood lathes where there is a lot of sanding. If the dust from sanding accumulates inside the chuck, it will 'gum up' the mechanism and make it hard to use. The solution is to periodically clean the chuck.

The simplest maintenance is to blast dust out of the chuck with compressed air. I've read (somewhere - don't recall where) that the ultimate maintenance is to take the chuck apart and rinse off the components in a solvent such as kerosine. Teknatool has a illustrated web page that describes the procedure for disassembling their chuck. Unfortunately, other than the Teknatool article, there's not a lot of information on the web on scroll chuck maintenance - someone could do the turning community a great service by making a video on disassembling and cleaning chucks.
 
monophoto said:
The principle of Occam's Razor probably applies here - the simplest explanation of the problem is most likely the correct explanation: it sounds like it needs cleaning.

Lathe chucks in general accumulate dust, and that's a particular problem with chucks on wood lathes where there is a lot of sanding. If the dust from sanding accumulates inside the chuck, it will 'gum up' the mechanism and make it hard to use. The solution is to periodically clean the chuck.

The simplest maintenance is to blast dust out of the chuck with compressed air. I've read (somewhere - don't recall where) that the ultimate maintenance is to take the chuck apart and rinse off the components in a solvent such as kerosine. Teknatool has a illustrated web page that describes the procedure for disassembling their chuck. Unfortunately, other than the Teknatool article, there's not a lot of information on the web on scroll chuck maintenance - someone could do the turning community a great service by making a video on disassembling and cleaning chucks.
Click to expand...

Hmmm razor, gotta love that.

I do know for a fact, ask me HOW I know this :), that if you over tighten (both open and close positions) that it will strip the scroll ring.

Looks like this actually.
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It will be gritty and bind in certain spots. If it's dirty then it will tend be gritty in all spots. I use brake cleaner and spray them out good, amazing what junk comes out of there to.
 

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Capn Eddie did a youtube on cleaning his Oneway chuck. I think its called "My Friend Chuck" or something like that.

BTW, I have the same chuck and it has been working great for a few years.
 
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I had one stick, I filled a small bucket with kerosene and soaked it overnight. the next morning, it worked. It was gummed up with sanding dust, and junk, the kerosene soak loosened it up enough to get it moving. After messing with it, and soaking a few more times it worked great. Then I used a not sticking silicone spray to "grease" it. First time I used it on the lathe more "gunk" was thrown out by the centrifugal force. Back to the kerosene for more washing.
 
Uggghhh! PSI is happy to look at it and getting it to work right, but since it's more than 2 months old I need to send it in and wait for them to fix it over a direct replacement. (Not upset about that logic.) Not a good time of the year to be without a chuck. I guess I'll look at it tonight and try to blow it out and then maybe soak it in kerosene.
 
have a photo of the back end of it? Also do you have snap ring pliers?

Soaking it could help. Also spray it down with something like engine cleaner, brake cleaner, carb cleaner, wd40, etc would also work good.

If you do disassemble it something like moly dry film lube works wonders.
 
Thanks for all the tips and suggestions guys. A few shots of WD-40, Wash, Rinse, Repeat and I've got it moving to about 80% of what it was like new. This will get the boy through the Christmas season and his Christmas break. Then I can send it in to PSI for them to do a thorough cleaning of it.

Now for another shop lecture to the boy about cleaning of the shop and cleaning off tools and a bit of preventive maintenance.
 
have an air compressor? If so then hose it down real good. I mean inside as much as you can while opening/closing the jaws several times. Then hit it with the WD40 again. Take the chuck off the late and put the jaws up while opening/closing then jaws down. All the time hit repeat times with WD40 and compressed air. that should dislodge most of the crud in there.

To be honest chucks do tend to collect all sorts of nasty stuff. This is why the SuperNova G2 chuck has a backing insert to cut down on that. This is also why I said brake cleaner :) seems to work super fast to remove the sticky stuff and allow everything else to fall out.

You want to spray from the jaw side, the sides where the slides comes out of the body and from the back where the scroll ring is. This is likely not something you can over spray :) However if you use it WET you will get MORE crud build up in there
 
I found and watched Capt Eddie's video on chuck cleaning.

He uses a One-Way, and the significant difference is that uses a key rather than tommy bars. But the prinicple behind his cleaning process should apply to the PSI utility chuck:
1. Remove the jaws
2. Use compressed air to blow out any obvious crud.
3. Soak the chuck in a solvent - Capt Eddie suggests mineral spirits - and exercise the mechanism a number of times to dislodge any crud inside. Use a wire brush to clean out the channels that the dogs ride in.

The cleaning instructions published by Teknatool suggest removing the split ring and completely disassembling the chuck before rinsing the parts in a solvent and brushing them to remove crud. I suspect that complete disassembly isn't such a big deal, but it takes a special tool to remove that split ring.

I tend to agree with edstreet - the ideal solvent is something that will rinse out the crud, and then evaporate completely, leaving the innards of the chuck DRY.
 
I have completely disassembled my nova G3 chuck several times and am very glad that I did. You can use a standard pair of pliers to remove the snap ring and everything just comes out. It's really easy.
 
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