Chuck Trouble

[Christopher Workman]

I have a 42-inch long wood lathe that I got new on Ebay in December 2015. It came with a drive center and 6-inch faceplate. I bought a grizzly 4-jaw chuck with a spindle adapter.
When turning between centers or with the faceplate on the lathe, it runs fine, but when the chuck is on the lathe, even if it's empty with all the jaws screwed in, it vibrates very bad. The lathe is bolted to a workbench, which is secured to the walls of my shed. The lathe is set to the slowest speed.
Also, the chuck can be tight on the wood when started, but the wood will come out of it while turning.

 

[Gary Beasley]

If the chuck can be determined to be good, most likely the insert is bad. Ive heard complaints on these but havent seen it myself.

 

[john lucas]

you say you have a 4 jaw chuck from Grizzly. Is it one of the ones with 4 skinny jaws or do the jaws look like pieces of pie. If it's the same lathe that Harbour Freight sells it might vibrate if you put anything on it with weight. It's not a very solid lathe.

 

[Mark Wollschlager]

Need more info about the chuck and how it fits on the spindle.
Does it screw all the way onto the threads to the shoulder of the spindle or does it stop short.
No debris between the chuck adapter and the spindle shoulder.
Is the adapter for the chuck screwed into the chuck, and is it secure.
If it is a screw in adapter, the threads on the adapter and chuck need to be clean and the adapter / chuck mating surface also needs to be clean.no burrs.

 

[Mike Johnson]

I am guessing the chuck does not seat all of the way onto the spindle face, sometimes a spacer or washer is required to fill the gap if the spindle thread is too long or the chuck thread depth is too short.

 

[Bill Boehme]

On some HF lathes the spindle is a solid mandrel that is threaded on the end, but there isn't a shoulder to provide a registration surface for alignment of a chuck. Without more information it is hard to guess where the problem might be. The problem could also be the type of chuck. Grizzly sells three types of chucks for woodturning lathes.

The first type is a scroll type that has metal lathe type jaws. It might be satisfactory for bottle stoppers and the like, but otherwise they can't satisfactorily hold a workpiece.

The next four independent jaws and shouldn't be used for woodturning despite what the Grizzly catalog says.

The third type are real woodturning chucks. They have the "slice of pie" shaped jaws that John Lucas mentioned that completely wrap around a tenon to ensure the best grip

 

[hughie]

I had an insert that was made in China, it was way out, so it could easily be an out of true insert.

 

[Odie]

I had an insert that was made in China, it was way out, so it could easily be an out of true insert.

Could very well be.......or, it could be the chuck.......or it could be in the spindle itself.

A dial indicator and magnetic base ought to be in every turner's tool box. They aren't very expensive, and really come in handy to troubleshoot questions like these.

-----odie-----

 

[Owen Lowe]

The next four independent jaws and shouldn't be used for woodturning despite what the Grizzly catalog says.

Unless you want to do some off-center turning. I have a metal lathe and like my independent 4-jaw chuck; often thought about using one on my wood lathe. Not looked into it deeply enough nor had a motivating off-center need with my woodturning yet.

 

[Bill Boehme]

Unless you want to do some off-center turning. I have a metal lathe and like my independent 4-jaw chuck; often thought about using one on my wood lathe. Not looked into it deeply enough nor had a motivating off-center need with my woodturning yet.

I did give a little thought about what could be done with that kind of chuck and had the following thoughts:

The jaws are vertical and smooth (no dovetail) and very short not to mention very narrow. Wood is compliant (meaning that it will yield under pressure so a chuck has to capture a tenon since there is basically no spring force holding the tenon. Multi-axis turning means that the tailstock end isn't moved to keep the new axis parallel to the old axis which means that the chuck's grip on the wood will be even further reduced when the workpiece is angled. And, most importantly, the question is from a new turner and not a mossback like you and me.​

 

[Perry Hilbert]

I bought a used lathe that came with some accessories, including the 4 jaw independent chuck. I thought it was about worthless too. We tend to think of chucks for using on turned round tenons. The four jaw actually worked for an asymetrical piece of drift wood I turned. The jaws did not grip very tightly and I had to take light cuts. The chuck did offer a way to do some non concentric turning. In two years, I probably used it 4 times.