Wood Lathe Chucks - A New Look at an Old Trick

When the old timers talked about chucks for the wood lathe, they meant either a Jacob's chuck, a screw chuck or a glue block chuck. Glue chucks took a long time to set but were convenient to use. New glues make the convenience even greater and the old chucks more versatile for the home turner looking for an easy and effective way to hold work on the lathe.

Glue chucks are almost always used for faceplate work. In fact they start with a faceplate. Let us assume that a bowl was being turned and no screw holes were desired in the bottom. Instead of screwing the a faceplate to the bottom of the bowl a piece of scrap wood was screwed to the faceplate. This was then turned round and faced flat. Then the bowl was glued to the scrap wood.

Because it would be hard to get the scrap wood off the bowl, a piece of paper was glued between the wood and the bowl bottom. Once the bowl was finish turned it was removed from the chuck by placing a chisel or plane blade at the paper and striking it. The paper would split leaving half on the bowl and half on the chuck. With a bit of sanding the bowl was ready to finish and the chuck was ready for the next gluing.

The only problem with the old glue chuck was the time it took for the glue to set, generally overnight. Two of today's glues speed up the process and lend a great deal of convenience, hot glue and super glue.

The same hot glue used by the crafters does a great job in mounting a dry bowl blank to a glue chuck. No paper is used. The glue is simply applied from a well heated gun to the scrap block and then immediately pressed to the bowl bottom. Withing a couple of minutes it can be mounted on the lathe and turned. Once finished it can be removed with a friction cut of a parting tool into the waste block to loosen the glue or by striking the glue line with a chisel.

Unfortunately hot glue will not work with wet wood which many wood turners like to use. Super glue or cyanoacrylate glue does a fine job. First a shot of accelerator is applied to the bowl bottom. Then a bead of super glue is applied to the waste block on the glue chuck. Both are pressed together and again withing a couple of minutes the piece is ready to mount on the wood lathe. Once finished the nature of the glue allows separation from the glue chuck with a sharp rap on a chisel held at the glue line.

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Wood Lathe Chucks - A New Look at an Old Trick

When the old timers talked about chucks for the wood lathe, they meant either a Jacob's chuck, a screw chuck or a glue block chuck. Glue chucks took a long time to set but were convenient to use. New glues make the convenience even greater and the old chucks more versatile for the home turner looking for an easy and effective way to hold work on the lathe.

Glue chucks are almost always used for faceplate work. In fact they start with a faceplate. Let us assume that a bowl was being turned and no screw holes were desired in the bottom. Instead of screwing the a faceplate to the bottom of the bowl a piece of scrap wood was screwed to the faceplate. This was then turned round and faced flat. Then the bowl was glued to the scrap wood.

Because it would be hard to get the scrap wood off the bowl, a piece of paper was glued between the wood and the bowl bottom. Once the bowl was finish turned it was removed from the chuck by placing a chisel or plane blade at the paper and striking it. The paper would split leaving half on the bowl and half on the chuck. With a bit of sanding the bowl was ready to finish and the chuck was ready for the next gluing.

The only problem with the old glue chuck was the time it took for the glue to set, generally overnight. Two of today's glues speed up the process and lend a great deal of convenience, hot glue and super glue.

The same hot glue used by the crafters does a great job in mounting a dry bowl blank to a glue chuck. No paper is used. The glue is simply applied from a well heated gun to the scrap block and then immediately pressed to the bowl bottom. Withing a couple of minutes it can be mounted on the lathe and turned. Once finished it can be removed with a friction cut of a parting tool into the waste block to loosen the glue or by striking the glue line with a chisel.

Unfortunately hot glue will not work with wet wood which many wood turners like to use. Super glue or cyanoacrylate glue does a fine job. First a shot of accelerator is applied to the bowl bottom. Then a bead of super glue is applied to the waste block on the glue chuck. Both are pressed together and again withing a couple of minutes the piece is ready to mount on the wood lathe. Once finished the nature of the glue allows separation from the glue chuck with a sharp rap on a chisel held at the glue line.

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Wood Lathe Chucks - Not Necessary But Very Nice

Woodturning has been around since at least the time of the great pyramids of Egypt. In all that time there have been very few innovations in the craft. However, in the last few decades, the four jaw, self centering, wood lathe chuck has come into its own with myriads of jaw sets and sizes as well as competing manufacturers. While the chuck may not be necessary, it is certainly nice to use and makes some tasks easier and more enjoyable.

Consider if you will, the making of a salad bowl, one of the mainstays of a woodturner's repertoire. Traditionally, the top of a bowl blank would be mounted on a screw chuck or a faceplate and fastened to the wood lathe . The outside would be turned and the bottom flattened. Either a wood block would be glued to the bottom to handle a faceplate for turning the inside or the bowl would be fastened to the faceplate with screws leaving hole to be filled or covered later.

Most if not all of the new four jaw chucks come with a wood screw attachment. A hole is drilled in the center of the top of the bowl blank for the wood screw. The screw holds it to the chuck with incredible power. The outside of the bowl is turned, the bottom levelled and then a shallow mortise is cut in the bottom. Once the bowl is removed from the screw, the screw attachment is removed from the chuck and the chuck jaws are opened into the mortise on the bowl bottom. Again the holding power is awesome. Now the bowl is finish turned, sanded and finished. Instead of screw holes in the bottom there is a decorative mortise that is simply left as part of the artistic design of the bowl.

One of the difficulties of turning bowls is that they are generally turned of green wood. This leaves a very thick bowl that must be dried before finish turning. As it dries it warps and twists making it hard to remount on the lathe for final work.

With a chuck it is possible to leave a mortise on the bottom as with dry wood and to leave either a tenon or a mortise on the inside as well. The chuck is opened into the now oval internal mortise or onto the now oval tenon. Because of the power of the chuck, the hold works and it is now safe to once again turn the outer mortise and to flatten the remainder of the base. All that remains is to flip the piece around and final turn the outside and inside of the bowl. Once it is turned, sanded and finished it is time for the next one.

Is the four jaw wood chuck for the lathe necessary? No, but it does make some things faster, easier, and above all safer.

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Wood Lathe Chucks - Is One in Your Future?

The 4-jaw wood lathe chuck is one of the innovations in woodturning in the last century. For many of today's turners it has become a necessity. Is it in your future or is it a luxury that can wait?

Wood lathes demand that a turning blank be held in place in order to work on it. Traditionally the blank has been held between centers for spindle turning such as chair rungs and on a faceplate for such items as bowls or platters. In more recent years, especially for faceplate turning, the four jaw chuck has been used by more and more turners to take the place of the faceplate. Beginners are often convinced that a chuck is necessary, however the cost is often more than the price of a first lathe.

It should be remembered that woodturning as art and craft has been performed for more than three thousand years. The woodturning chuck of today's craftsmen is less than one hundred years old. Yet there is little made on the wood lathe today that has not been make is some form in the past. Perhaps a quick look at the common salad bowl, long a mainstay of the woodturner's output, would help to see why the chuck is often used.

Traditionally a rough bowl blank would be attached to the headstock of the lathe with a faceplate and wood screws mounted to the top of the blank. The outside of the bowl would be rough turned and the bottom turned to the same size as the faceplate. Then the faceplate would be screwed to the bottom of the bowl and the blank would be hollowed out leaving a think bowl. This would then be waxed and dried so as to warp and twist as wood does. After drying for a few months, the bowl would be remounted using a couple of the screw holes on the bottom and finish turned. Ultimately there would be screw holes in the bottom of the bowl. These would be filled or covered.

With a 4 jaw chuck, the bowl blank is usually mounted first with a screw fixture in the chuck and the outside turned leaving a tenon on the bottom to fit the jaws of the chuck. The blank is reversed to place the tenon in the chuck and the inside roughed away to leave a thick bowl for waxing and drying as before. After drying the tenon is replaced in the chuck and the bowl is finished in and out. Large jaws are placed on the chuck to grasp the outside of the bowl and turn away the tenon. There are no screw holes on the bottom.

It is easy to see how a 4 jaw wood lathe chuck can make things easier and perhaps quicker for the woodturner. Thus it remains a question of economics and sometimes a connection to the history of the craft as to whether this is the right time for you to purchase and learn to use this versatile tool.

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Quick Wood Lathe Chucks - Wood and Glue

Wood lathes have been around so long that pictures of them can be found on the walls of Egyptian pyramids. During the thousands of years that we have been using them, various ways of holding work on the lathe have been developed. One such for faceplate work is the glue and paper joint but modern glues have made it even better.

Both the old style and the new start the same way. A piece of scrap wood is screwed to a faceplate and turned round and flat. Now a piece of wood suitable for a bowl or platter is selected. For consideration purposes, let us assume it is for a platter.

A piece is selected that is deep enough for securing to a faceplate with short screws. This is done to the top of the piece. First the outside is turned round and the bottom is turned flat. While the piece turns a pencil is used to make a ring the size of the scrap wood on the faceplate.

The old method of using the chuck involved gluing a piece of craft paper to the waste wood and then to the platter blank, carefully centering the chuck in the pencil lines. A clamp or weight was put on the assembly, making sure it did not shift, and it was left for at least eight hours to dry before being remounted on the lathe. Once the top was turned the chuck was removed by inserting a chisel at the paper line and splitting it, leaving paper on both chuck and platter. It remained to scrape and sand off the paper. While the system worked well, drawbacks to this method involved the long glue curing time and the inability to work with green wood because the old glues did not stick to wet wood.

The same hot glues the crafters use allow us to adopt the old method easily to dry wood for platters. In this case the paper is omitted and hot glue is applied to the waste block which is quickly centered on the pencil ring on the bottom. Hot glue is very strong with the stresses of turning but has little shear strength. This means that once the top is turned and the piece sanded, a chisel can be inserted at the glue line and a quick mallet rap will separate the waste and the platter. Remaining glue is easily cleaned up and the pencil ring sanded away.

Cyanoacrylate glues, sometimes referred to as super glues after a particular brand name, allow the same procedures for green wood. Again, they have excellent strength except for shear applications and can be separated with a mallet rap. If accelerator is applied to the piece and cyanoacrylate applied to the waste the work can be immediately mounted on the lathe as can dry wood with hot glue. In both cases the waiting time is inconsequential and there is no paper to scrape away.

Sometimes the old ways are the good ways. With a little innovation they can be even better and allow even greater enjoyment in the craft of woodturning.

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Wood Lathe Chucks - Do Not Forget the Jaws

These days when woodturners speak of wood lathe chucks, they mean the new style 4 jaw chuck. Most of these lathe chucks come with a set of middle size jaws and many others are for sale. Extra sets of jaws can make a versatile tool even better.

The middle size jaws are used to hold objects that range from about 1 1/4" diameter to 2" diameter. This of course varies with different manufacturers but is a pretty good guess. Check with your supplier before you buy. For a long time, this size of jaws suits many if most turners. It will permit the turning of bowls to fifteen or sixteen inches as well as a variety of smaller items.

Smaller jaws are available for all the major wood lathe chucks on the market. These allow for pieces from 3/8" up to 1" in diameter. While this may seem extremely small to non turners or to those new to the craft, there are a great many items such as scoops, candle sticks, or ornaments where these jaws are used. This allows for a very secure hold on small pieces that are turned at high speeds and otherwise may be knocked from the lathe. It also circumvents the need to develop some far more complex way to hold small items for turning.

Large jaws are obviously used for large pieces. It should be considered when buying large jaws that can open to three or more inches that some pieces may call not only for large jaws but also for a larger, stronger chuck. Manufacturers usually have more robust versions of the chuck for large, out of balance pieces of wood. With that said, a large set of jaws can be used with discretion to hold many items for turning.

Jumbo jaws are sold for many of the 4 jaw wood lathe chucks on the market. These are not used for holding large, unbalanced chunks of wood but rather for turning the bottoms of bowls by holding the finished bowl at the the top. This solves a lot of problems for may turners in completing a bowl to satisfaction and a good bowl is the mainstay of many woodturners.

All in all, more jaws of various sizes can make you versatile 4 jaw wood lathe chuck even more versatile. Of course this makes the craft itself more versatile and can stimulate your creativity as you look for more uses for both chuck and jaws.

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Screw Chucks on Wood Lathes - We Always Did it That Way

When wood turners speak about lathe chucks these days they usually mean the expensive four jaw style. However this is a recent innovation developed from the self centering chucks of the metal lathe industry. Woodturning has been around at least since the days when the ancient Egyptians put their pictures on the side of pyramids. The old timers often spoke of the screw chuck when they mentioned lathe chucks and the often made their own quickly and cheaply.

A lathe chuck is simply a tool that goes on the lathe center and holds work. While it may be used on the tailstock, it is usually placed on the headstock. Consider the making of a simple candle stick, with a cup on top to hold the candle, a stem to hold on to, and a base.

A block of wood is cut to the size of the cup and long enough to fit on the screw of the chuck. It is turned to shape and hollowed out to accommodate the expected candle. Decorative work is turned on the bottom to allow space for a mortise to take a tenon.

Another piece of wood is placed between centers and turned into the stem of the candlestick. A round tenon is cut on either end of the stem. Each tenon is the width of the screw or a bit larger.

Now a piece of wood large enough for the base of the candlestick is cut and drilled at center a little smaller than the diameter of the screw for the lathe screw chuck. The less figured side of the wood is facing out. Once the piece is turned to round, the face is flattened and made slightly concave. This will be the bottom of the base and a concave base will help it sit better.

The piece is removed from the chuck and reversed for holding. Now the entire top of the base is available for turning. Once it is turned it is easily removed from the chuck by simply unscrewing it. A quick trip to the drill press and the holes used by the screw chuck on cup and base are widened to fit the tenons on the stem. All that remains are to glue them together and apply the finish.

Screw chucks are extremely useful additions to the accessories of the wood lathe. A great indicator of this is the familiar procedure of four jaw wood lathe chuck manufacturers to include a screw attachment to convert today's modern lathe chuck into the screw chuck of yesteryear.

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Wood Lathe Chucks - Not Necessary But Very Nice

Woodturning has been around since at least the time of the great pyramids of Egypt. In all that time there have been very few innovations in the craft. However, in the last few decades, the four jaw, self centering, wood lathe chuck has come into its own with myriads of jaw sets and sizes as well as competing manufacturers. While the chuck may not be necessary, it is certainly nice to use and makes some tasks easier and more enjoyable.

Consider if you will, the making of a salad bowl, one of the mainstays of a woodturner's repertoire. Traditionally, the top of a bowl blank would be mounted on a screw chuck or a faceplate and fastened to the wood lathe . The outside would be turned and the bottom flattened. Either a wood block would be glued to the bottom to handle a faceplate for turning the inside or the bowl would be fastened to the faceplate with screws leaving hole to be filled or covered later.

Most if not all of the new four jaw chucks come with a wood screw attachment. A hole is drilled in the center of the top of the bowl blank for the wood screw. The screw holds it to the chuck with incredible power. The outside of the bowl is turned, the bottom levelled and then a shallow mortise is cut in the bottom. Once the bowl is removed from the screw, the screw attachment is removed from the chuck and the chuck jaws are opened into the mortise on the bowl bottom. Again the holding power is awesome. Now the bowl is finish turned, sanded and finished. Instead of screw holes in the bottom there is a decorative mortise that is simply left as part of the artistic design of the bowl.

One of the difficulties of turning bowls is that they are generally turned of green wood. This leaves a very thick bowl that must be dried before finish turning. As it dries it warps and twists making it hard to remount on the lathe for final work.

With a chuck it is possible to leave a mortise on the bottom as with dry wood and to leave either a tenon or a mortise on the inside as well. The chuck is opened into the now oval internal mortise or onto the now oval tenon. Because of the power of the chuck, the hold works and it is now safe to once again turn the outer mortise and to flatten the remainder of the base. All that remains is to flip the piece around and final turn the outside and inside of the bowl. Once it is turned, sanded and finished it is time for the next one.

Is the four jaw wood chuck for the lathe necessary? No, but it does make some things faster, easier, and above all safer.

Darrell Feltmate is a juried wood turner whose web site, Around the Woods, contains detailed information about wood turning for the novice or experienced turner as well as a collection of turnings for your viewing pleasure. You too can learn to turn wood, here is the place to start. Wondering what it looks like? There are many free videos on the site dealing with everything from sharpening to making a bowl. See the chuck in use making a Christmas tree ornament at http://aroundthewoods.com/projects/instruction/ballicicle/biornament01.html.

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Screw Chucks on Wood Lathes - We Always Did it That Way

When wood turners speak about lathe chucks these days they usually mean the expensive four jaw style. However this is a recent innovation developed from the self centering chucks of the metal lathe industry. Woodturning has been around at least since the days when the ancient Egyptians put their pictures on the side of pyramids. The old timers often spoke of the screw chuck when they mentioned lathe chucks and the often made their own quickly and cheaply.

A lathe chuck is simply a tool that goes on the lathe center and holds work. While it may be used on the tailstock, it is usually placed on the headstock. Consider the making of a simple candle stick, with a cup on top to hold the candle, a stem to hold on to, and a base.

A block of wood is cut to the size of the cup and long enough to fit on the screw of the chuck. It is turned to shape and hollowed out to accommodate the expected candle. Decorative work is turned on the bottom to allow space for a mortise to take a tenon.

Another piece of wood is placed between centers and turned into the stem of the candlestick. A round tenon is cut on either end of the stem. Each tenon is the width of the screw or a bit larger.

Now a piece of wood large enough for the base of the candlestick is cut and drilled at center a little smaller than the diameter of the screw for the lathe screw chuck. The less figured side of the wood is facing out. Once the piece is turned to round, the face is flattened and made slightly concave. This will be the bottom of the base and a concave base will help it sit better.

The piece is removed from the chuck and reversed for holding. Now the entire top of the base is available for turning. Once it is turned it is easily removed from the chuck by simply unscrewing it. A quick trip to the drill press and the holes used by the screw chuck on cup and base are widened to fit the tenons on the stem. All that remains are to glue them together and apply the finish.

Screw chucks are extremely useful additions to the accessories of the wood lathe. A great indicator of this is the familiar procedure of four jaw wood lathe chuck manufacturers to include a screw attachment to convert today's modern lathe chuck into the screw chuck of yesteryear.

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