New Chuck

[Brian Gustin]

Curious what those problems were and the time frame?

+1

 

[John K Jordan]

I too am slightly curious about the "all the problems" statement but I can't imagine how that would matter to me. If there were mechanical problems in the past, perhaps they were before my time. I'm a relative newcomer with just 25 years of experience.

The direction of rotation never bother me for a second. None wore out, all are precise. They have held all sorts of things, tiny (3/16" dia), and larger (20).

I've had more than 20 Nova chucks, five different models. Used by me and a bunch of students. And a LOT of people I know are happy with Nova chucks.

But like almost anything else in the world some people are fans of certain things and stick with them. Chevy vs Ford, city vs country life. Nothing wrong with any of that that. As someone else pointed out, you can turn wood with any chuck that will grip the wood. I've turned on almost every brand of chuck available. Perhaps some problems could be with the user than the hardware. I've never blamed a chuck for my own failures.

What ever the chuck brand, what is more important to me is that it allows the same jaws to work on the all the chucks in the shop.

 

[Leo Van Der Loo]

The problems were with the jaw slides, where they would not fit properly and it would take several tries to get a proper set. It's been a while and probably around 20 years or better.

The production then was changed to China, as I said it was the reason I got Oneway Chucks.

Found some talk about this, but of course you do not have to believe me.

There are very few turners that have been turning longer than 20-25 years and remember what was happening. then, basically all on the REC forum.

 

[Bill Alston]

Interesting Leo, thanks. OneWay chucks look good and are available over here. We haven’t had so many tool shows since Covid so I've not had chance to see one up close. They are a similar price to an Axminster chuck, or about double the price of the Nova.

 

[Doug Freeman]

The problems were with the jaw slides, where they would not fit properly and it would take several tries to get a proper set. It's been a while and probably around 20 years or better.

The production then was changed to China, as I said it was the reason I got Oneway Chucks.

Found some talk about this, but of course you do not have to believe me.

There are very few turners that have been turning longer than 20-25 years and remember what was happening. then, basically all on the REC forum.

Thanks Leo. As an engineer I'm always curious about failure modes etc. I suspected the timeframe was pre ~2000. From the look of it, it may have been an assembly issue, getting the 1-2-3-4 jaw slides sent with each chuck. It wouldn't surprise me if early on Nova might have made the jaw slides out of mild steel, like the jaws, and had galling issues, which caused them to go to the pm jaw slides with iron infused with copper.

Nova says they had the 1st self centering woodturning chuck introduced in 1988. I'm sure there were "teething" problems - I was involved with several new product launches and major product redesigns in my mfg career, and none were perfect. Much of my career was spent working with scroll hvac compressors, which utilized mating scroll members (similar in design to the spiral looking scroll of a chuck) for gas compression. The machining tolerances for the compressors are orders of magnitude more precise vs a chuck, as the pair of scrolls must seal gas pressure.

I have a Oneway Stronghold chuck as well as a couple of Nova's. In ~ 6 years of use the only issue with either was an insert with one of the Nova's that caused excess run out - replacement of the insert cured that issue. While there might be longer term wear out issues with the Nova design, I don't see any signs yet (I spent several years as a reliability engineer). There are 2 design aspects with Oneway chucks I consider "best in class" - the taper lock insert design and the "profile" jaw design, providing sufficient grip throughout jaw expansion range to not have concern with "perfect circle" size of the jaws.

I purchased a Nova chuck at a special price when I purchased a Nova lathe, getting the Stronghold chuck several months later. I've considered replacing the Nova with a Talon, but the Nova performs just fine - well enough I purchased a 2nd one to reduce jaw changes. Yes Nova chucks are significantly cheaper vs Oneway, Vicmarc, Axminster and others, but that does not mean they are not just as capable of holding a piece of wood in a lathe. I view them as providing an excellent value alternative in the market.

 

[Brian Gustin]

Ah that clarification helps. I notice specific mention of a particular brand - the "Compac" - which I have never heard of , and I'd tend to suspect that was their goal of coming out with an even cheaper design chuck to compete on price - I would bet it was later replaced with the G3 , which I have one, but I, oddly enough, DISLIKE the geared key chucks and really prefer the "sealed" body with hex or square key - I notice also when I was searching for more Supernova 2 chucks , that new ones were considerably more expensive than the G3 - In any case, I have several Nova chucks and quite happy with all of them, giving strong preference to the SN2 - So much so that I can't imagine wanting to spend 2-3 times as much on a chuck that for all intents and purposes does for me the exact same thing.
(And BTW, Bill A - Your original opening post, the chuck would be so expensive because it is a precision chuck that is built as a precision machinist chuck commonly used on a metal lathe, you can tell by the provided jaw slides - Innies and outies - in addition to the threaded hole slides... but I cannot imagine needing .0001" precision tolerances in woodturning, because Wood, unlike metal, likes to move.)

 

[Bill Blasic]

The Nova chuck is the oldest of the modern day 4 jaw chucks. Take that Vicmarc that Robo has above that he says turns the wrong way, well that is because it was a direct copy of the Nova chuck. The 1 and only problem that the Nova chuck experienced was with the tightening devise used on the original Supernova chuck. It is made out of some type of pot metal and some folks broke them. I have two of them and they have not broke in use for over 20+ years. A thing that I personally was not happy about is when they came out with the Titan II chuck having a 2 hole slide jaw system instead of the superior 3 hole slide system. Did not take long that the Titan III was back to the 3 hole slide system and with that they brought out 2 new jaws for it that are fantastic and will hold the biggest projects perfectly.

 

[Bill Blasic]

I do not own a chuck where the chuck body runs out more than .0015. Nova, Oneway, Vicmarc, Axminster and Bulldog chucks. To add above one problem that Nova had was Woodcraft selling no name brand inserts for the Nova chucks that made the chucks run out .006 to .009 thousands where Nova was getting blamed for bad chucks.

 

[Bill Alston]

(And BTW, Bill A - Your original opening post, the chuck would be so expensive because it is a precision chuck that is built as a precision machinist chuck commonly used on a metal lathe, you can tell by the provided jaw slides - Innies and outies.

I believe you’re getting mixed up with my other post. My original post in this thread is a Record Power chuck, not the expensive chuck shown in my other thread.

Here’s another picture of the Record Power Chuck.

 

[hockenbery]

Curious what those problems were and the time frame?

Biggest issue In my experience is with the birdbeak jaws.
They don’t hold well on oversized tennons.
They hold well on a near perfect circle tenon with a groove for the bird beak.

ONEWAY jaws excel at holding tenons a 1/2 “ over the perfect circle- big advantage if you resize the dried tenon to fit the same jaws.
Real dovetail jaws do quite well with tenons a 1/2” over perfect circle too.

I’ve seen more than a few tenons work their way out of students’ chucks. Most often it’s a birdbeak jaws.

 

[Bill Alston]

As a point of interest, Record Power marketed the Nova chuck in the UK. They then bought out their own copy of it. First made in China I believe, but now made in the UK. Two notable differences are that Record Power made the Base Jaws (or slides) wider than the Nova, and they increased the number of indexing points on the back of the chuck from 24 to 48.

 

[John K Jordan]

I do not own a chuck where the chuck body runs out more than .0015. Nova, Oneway, Vicmarc, Axminster and Bulldog chucks. To add above one problem that Nova had was Woodcraft selling no name brand inserts for the Nova chucks that made the chucks run out .006 to .009 thousands where Nova was getting blamed for bad chucks.

I remember the reported problem with the off-brand inserts so I only bought the Teknatool/Nova inserts. With a precision ground/hardened steel rod in the slides and chuck jaws, the SN2s I checked with a dial test indicator had less than .001" runout. I didn't check them all.

I did buy a two SN1 chucks used from a club member and he must have tightened them with a cheater bar, enough to warp the body of the chuck above the slides such that they wouldn't open/close properly. Repair by hand got them working but I never trusted those two for precision.

I've seen turners get the chuck jaws mixed up but never with new jaws from the factory. I don't know how they make the jaws now but early on I noted evidence that the jaws appeared to be machined in one piece then cut into four quadrants with a saw - could see the saw marks. That means if, say, a #4 jaw segment from one set was switched with a #4 from another set the jaws may not close properly.

 

[Bill Alston]

Biggest issue In my experience is with the birdbeak jaws.
They don’t hold well on oversized tennons.
They hold well on a near perfect circle tenon with a groove for the bird beak.

I’ve seen more than a few tenons work their way out of students’ chucks. Most often it’s a birdbeak jaws.

That’s interesting, I’ve not heard of that.

Axminster’s standard C Jaws have a pronounced tenon on the inside instead of a dovetail. Axminster say that you should NOT turn a recess for this tenon but to just let it bite into the wood. I must admit though that I do make a very slight cut for it. I later learned from a professional turner doing a demo at my club that they, and others, do the same! No issues with work holding so far. This from the Axminster website.

EDIT: The video I just posted below in #55 shows the Tenon quite clearly.

 

[John K Jordan]

Biggest issue In my experience is with the birdbeak jaws.
They don’t hold well on oversized tennons.
They hold well on a near perfect circle tenon with a groove for the bird beak.

Some of that depends on the wood. If the wood is very hard, like lignum vitae or ebony, an oversized tenon may hold at just 8 "corners" while they might bite more deeply into softer wood.

For Nova jaws with the small internal dovetails that some call "birdbeak", I don't cut a groove at the bottom. I form both tenons and recess just slighly over the closed jaw dimensions. The safety groove might be useful for very hard wood or for an aggressive new turner who has not developed good tool control. I think the latter was the case when someone in a class ejected a bowl maybe six times.

When listing recommended tenon and recess diameter ranges in their chart, Teknatool states in their chuck saw manual: "Allowance must be made for condition of wood and experience of the turner."

The original instructions with the chuck were to not use significantly oversized tenons or recesses, for good reasons.
I can't remember ever having a piece come off the lathe. Seems like that could put dents in it.

 

[Bill Alston]

I don't know how they make the jaws now but early on I noted evidence that the jaws appeared to be machined in one piece then cut into four quadrants with a saw - could see the saw marks. That means if, say, a #4 jaw segment from one set was switched with a #4 from another set the jaws may not close properly.

These days Axminster Tools use a CNC mill to cut them in four. About 15 seconds in:

 

[robo hippy]

The only Nova chuck that I remember being pulled from the market was their "quick" chuck. They tried to copy the actual "Quick Chuck", and first efforts didn't go well. I do have one of the Easy (?) or Quick chucks, and don't use it. They had problems with their first efforts also. I got the new and improved version. It does work, but every thing I have is geared to my Vicmark chucks so I don't use it much.

robo hippy

 

[Leo Van Der Loo]

Curious what those problems were and the time frame?

The machining was hit/miss, and the other real problem was with the jaw slides, some turners were getting a set of jaws with the new chuck, that had identical slides, like two number 2 or number 3 slides, sometimes the jaws would not close properly, so imagine getting 4 jaw slides that had two identical slides, like 1 2 2 4 or 1 2 3 3 or 1 2 4 4

So when people assembled the slides into their chuck it could not close properly of course, then trying to get a new proper set it did sometimes take 2 or 3 tries for that.

Don't forget all this had to come from New Zealand, a real hassle.

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I also do know about new runs/model changes and was involved with these (PP1 and PP2) pre-production problems and changes at a large automotive Co. growing up in a business with product we would design and build (one offs) and then doing repair and maintenance on these, I liked doing this work, it was human problems that made me step out and emigrate to Canada in 1967.

 

[Bill Blasic]

Well I don't know about the hundred thousand Nova chucks possibly sold but I do know of about over 30 Nova chucks that I owned and still own most, that everyone that I have owned had the jaws that were numbered 1,2,3,4 and until this day I never heard of anyone getting mismatched jaws. Plus the 50 or so extra jaw sets I have are either numbered or pin pricked 1,2,3,4. I have heard of folks putting the jaws on without regard to the numbers but that wasn't limited to Nova. You can't make everybody read instructions. Just wondering Leo did Viet Nam lead you to emigrate? Been talking to my wife about emigrating up there since November.

 

[robo hippy]

Oh, forgot, again..... With the Easy Chuck, the chuck jaws do not have numbers on them. I would think that with all the fancy CNC machines this would not be needed. I did get one extended set of jaws for my bigger Vicmark chuck and one jaw sat back away from the 3 others in closed position. I should have returned it, but it was years ago and I never got "a round 2 it"....

robo hippy