Lathe Chuck

Stoney

Stoney

AzB Silver Member
Silver Member
I have been looking for a source for a lathe chuck like the one used on Unique Products Cue Companion lathe. I could probably just order one from them but I don't even have to know their price to know it is more than I want to spend. I'm not denying them the right to make a profit, just asserting my right not to pay more than I absolutely have to.

I have looked in the online catalogs I am aware of and even some of the paper 'big book' catalogs to no avail. Since most cue making machinery is an adaptation of or modification of an existing item it seems that someone somewhere is producing these chucks for some other purpose than exclusive use by Unique Products.

Any ideas or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Stoney
 
whats wrong with the chuck?? What ever it is you could just purchase the worn out parts instead of the whole chuck and that would save you a bundle..
 
Stoney said:
I have been looking for a source for a lathe chuck like the one used on Unique Products Cue Companion lathe. I could probably just order one from them but I don't even have to know their price to know it is more than I want to spend. I'm not denying them the right to make a profit, just asserting my right not to pay more than I absolutely have to.

I have looked in the online catalogs I am aware of and even some of the paper 'big book' catalogs to no avail. Since most cue making machinery is an adaptation of or modification of an existing item it seems that someone somewhere is producing these chucks for some other purpose than exclusive use by Unique Products.

Any ideas or suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,
Stoney
Click to expand...


Stoney, I think I know what chuck you are talking about. I have never seen one simular. I believe that Unique is having those made for them. They would be hard to adapt over though. There are alot easier methods. What are you looking for in a chuck? What are your plans?

Jim.
 
Lathe chuck

Jim and Joe -

There is nothing wrong with my chucks (I hope). I am looking at building a lathe for tournament work that doesn't use an external jaw chuck and doesn't require a setup change to go from tips and ferrules to working along the shaft.

In the shop, where I can take my time and there are no distractors, I do not have accidents like whacking my knuckles on a spinning chuck. At tournaments with people standing around waiting, asking questions and just generally kibbutzing (?) I sometimes get careless about where my body parts are in relation to heavy, spinning, somewhat sharp edged things and then "WHACK". Besides stinging like a *itch I think it looks bad to the customer as in "if he bangs himself up, what is he going to do to my cue?"

Thanks for the suggestions and information. I hope I'm not wrong in thinking these chucks, or something very similar, are available from someone somewhere.

Regards,
Stoney
 
Lathe chuck

river said:
I built a small unit just for tips and used one of these. It seems to do the job verry good.

http://www.grizzly.com/products/3-3-Jaw-Chuck-1-x-8-TPI/H8034

hope this might help.

river
Click to expand...

Thanks for the suggestion.

I may be forced to use this type of chuck. The through hole only needs to be about 25mm and I think that is easily findable. I just want to get away from the external jaws.

Regards,
Stoney
 
Stoney said:
Thanks for the suggestion.

I may be forced to use this type of chuck. The through hole only needs to be about 25mm and I think that is easily findable. I just want to get away from the external jaws.

Regards,
Stoney
Click to expand...

The nutz would be to track down a collet chuck and mount
it in a bearing block - or maybe two - depending on the shaft

Dale
 
On a cylindrical grinder I used to use, we had a couple of sets of jaws.
The outer diameter of the jaws was ground down, so the extra jaw diameter was not flailing above the diameter of the cuck body. This was because we often were grinding parts that the wheel gaurd was close to the body of the chuck.
I am sure that you could figure the max diameter you are going to use, and the min, then make the adjustment to the chuck jaws acordingly.

Neil Lickfold.
 
pdcue said:
The nutz would be to track down a collet chuck and mount
it in a bearing block - or maybe two - depending on the shaft

Dale
Click to expand...

I'm in way over my head with collet types and styles as well as collect chucks. Are you suggesting that a collect chuck could be used but instead of mounting a work holding collet in the chuck you would mount the workpiece (cue shaft) directly? If so, I will add collect chucks to my search.

Thanks,
Stoney
 
conetip said:
On a cylindrical grinder I used to use, we had a couple of sets of jaws.
The outer diameter of the jaws was ground down, so the extra jaw diameter was not flailing above the diameter of the cuck body. This was because we often were grinding parts that the wheel gaurd was close to the body of the chuck.
I am sure that you could figure the max diameter you are going to use, and the min, then make the adjustment to the chuck jaws acordingly.

Neil Lickfold.
Click to expand...

This is something I had not considered and if I end up having to go with a chuck with external jaws I will see what can be done to reduce the outside diameter of the chuck jaws.

Thanks,
Stoney
 
As Dale has mentioned;go for a collet setup if you would like to save you're knuckles.
Here is a Bison version which might be usable depending on you're late.
I have seen these for minilathes as well, but I can't find the link right now..
 

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Stoney said:
Jim and Joe -

There is nothing wrong with my chucks (I hope). I am looking at building a lathe for tournament work that doesn't use an external jaw chuck and doesn't require a setup change to go from tips and ferrules to working along the shaft.

In the shop, where I can take my time and there are no distractors, I do not have accidents like whacking my knuckles on a spinning chuck. At tournaments with people standing around waiting, asking questions and just generally kibbutzing (?) I sometimes get careless about where my body parts are in relation to heavy, spinning, somewhat sharp edged things and then "WHACK". Besides stinging like a *itch I think it looks bad to the customer as in "if he bangs himself up, what is he going to do to my cue?"
Thanks for the suggestions and information. I hope I'm not wrong in thinking these chucks, or something very similar, are available from someone somewhere.

Regards,
Stoney
Click to expand...

IMHO the price is fair. Save yourself a lot of grief and just pay the money. There is no equal regarding safety and portability.
 
dchristal said:
IMHO the price is fair. Save yourself a lot of grief and just pay the money. There is no equal regarding safety and portability.
Click to expand...

O.K. I guess I am guilty. I held a trial and found Unique guilty based on purely circumstantial evidence. My bad. What is their price for the small chuck? An exact number would be great but a ballpark figure would be good enough for a Sunday morning.

Thanks,
Stoney
 
Stoney said:
I'm in way over my head with collet types and styles as well as collect chucks. Are you suggesting that a collect chuck could be used but instead of mounting a work holding collet in the chuck you would mount the workpiece (cue shaft) directly? If so, I will add collect chucks to my search.

Thanks,
Stoney
Click to expand...

Sort of:

here is a link to a pic from fleabay of a strait shank collet chuck

http://cgi.ebay.com/NEW-ER20-COLLET...ryZ41946QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem


this one is smaller than I would use - they are available in a wide
range of styles and sizes - put one in bearings and make it spin.

Dale
 
I have found that sliding a plastic coffee can lid up to the chuck saves my nuckles some pain and you could do a real nice job with a tupperware type bowl if you tried, and the price was good.--Leonard
 
I would not recommend a collet chuck for a portable setup. First, if you have one of the cue lathes, you will need to machine an adaptor for them to work. You really need good skills to do this properly. I consider myself to have good skills and had a hard time getting the entire assembly to run better than .003TIR when I was done.

One exception to this is if you go with a smaller collet size, there is a ready made adapter by some of the companies for Taig lathes.

I made an adapter for an ER40 series to use on my hightower lathe. I needed this size because I wanted to hold up to one inch OD. You can certainly get a smaller series if you only want to go up to .625.

The holder and 2 common size collets were maybe $250 or so, forgot now its been a couple years. I did buy Bison or comparable brand. I did not want import brand for this critical component.

The chuck is heavy. Much heavier than the stock hightower chuck. Its also much longer. Its solid steel.

I didn't like using it because there was no adjustability possible like there is with a chuck (an independent jaw chuck).

Also, I had made my delrin shaft collets with a lip on the front. So if I was doing a ferrule job, I could not remove it from the lathe unless the whole job was finished. The lip would prevent the delrin collet from sliding through the ER collet. And the larger od ferrule would prevent the shaft from sliding through.

The conclusion was there was no benefit in accuracy, and it was less convenient to use. It was smoother on your knuckles. But if you hit your knuckles hard enough to hurt with the 3 and 4 inch OD chucks on the cue lathes more than once a year you need more practice IMO.
 
iusedtoberich said:
I would not recommend a collet chuck for a portable setup. First, if you have one of the cue lathes, you will need to machine an adaptor for them to work. You really need good skills to do this properly. I consider myself to have good skills and had a hard time getting the entire assembly to run better than .003TIR when I was done.

One exception to this is if you go with a smaller collet size, there is a ready made adapter by some of the companies for Taig lathes.

I made an adapter for an ER40 series to use on my hightower lathe. I needed this size because I wanted to hold up to one inch OD. You can certainly get a smaller series if you only want to go up to .625.

The holder and 2 common size collets were maybe $250 or so, forgot now its been a couple years. I did buy Bison or comparable brand. I did not want import brand for this critical component.

The chuck is heavy. Much heavier than the stock hightower chuck. Its also much longer. Its solid steel.

I didn't like using it because there was no adjustability possible like there is with a chuck (an independent jaw chuck).

Also, I had made my delrin shaft collets with a lip on the front. So if I was doing a ferrule job, I could not remove it from the lathe unless the whole job was finished. The lip would prevent the delrin collet from sliding through the ER collet. And the larger od ferrule would prevent the shaft from sliding through.

The conclusion was there was no benefit in accuracy, and it was less convenient to use. It was smoother on your knuckles. But if you hit your knuckles hard enough to hurt with the 3 and 4 inch OD chucks on the cue lathes more than once a year you need more practice IMO.
Click to expand...



I'm in the process of building a rod wrapping lathe for My brother. He was wanting to keep the cost of the build down, and It's only for lower rpm wrapping anyhow, so I gave him a old wood lathe headstock with a 5/8 arbor. I didn't want to make one of those cheesy PVC chucks like on a lot of DIY setups have, but wanted something self centering so I found him a chuck on ebay for $20 BIN that looks very similar to a taig. The person mentioned in the add that It was 1" and the one they needed was 3/4", so I assumed the chuck was 1"-8, and they make a adapter for a 5/8 shop smith arbor to fit 1"-8 so I figured I could just use one of those, well the chuck did turn out to be 1" but was 16tpi, and I couldn't find an adapter that size. So after a few gear changes, I ended up making an adapter from a old spur drive I had by cutting the spur part off, turning part of It down and cutting the 16tpi threads to mount the chuck. It was The first one I have made. The threads turned out very nice and clean, and It ran true enough that It will work well for a wrapping lathe, but not sure I would trust It for the high rpm's we use. I'm wanting to get some cold steel to make one from scratch, and see just how true I can make them, as It may come in handy for some of the projects I have planned for the future.
 
iusedtoberich said:
I would not recommend a collet chuck for a portable setup. First, if you have one of the cue lathes, you will need to machine an adaptor for them to work. You really need good skills to do this properly. I consider myself to have good skills and had a hard time getting the entire assembly to run better than .003TIR when I was done.

One exception to this is if you go with a smaller collet size, there is a ready made adapter by some of the companies for Taig lathes.

I made an adapter for an ER40 series to use on my hightower lathe. I needed this size because I wanted to hold up to one inch OD. You can certainly get a smaller series if you only want to go up to .625.

The holder and 2 common size collets were maybe $250 or so, forgot now its been a couple years. I did buy Bison or comparable brand. I did not want import brand for this critical component.

The chuck is heavy. Much heavier than the stock hightower chuck. Its also much longer. Its solid steel.

I didn't like using it because there was no adjustability possible like there is with a chuck (an independent jaw chuck).

Also, I had made my delrin shaft collets with a lip on the front. So if I was doing a ferrule job, I could not remove it from the lathe unless the whole job was finished. The lip would prevent the delrin collet from sliding through the ER collet. And the larger od ferrule would prevent the shaft from sliding through.

The conclusion was there was no benefit in accuracy, and it was less convenient to use. It was smoother on your knuckles. But if you hit your knuckles hard enough to hurt with the 3 and 4 inch OD chucks on the cue lathes more than once a year you need more practice IMO.
Click to expand...

Good info - but the OP wasn't looking for more accuracy, he was
looking only for a way to not hit his knuckles while working fast
at a tourney, etc, with customers watching. Recall he said it was no problem working at his shop.

One other note: I wouldn't advocate putting the collet chuck
in the lathe chuck for this setup - but machining your own collet holder
to fit in a scroll chuck is a standard machine shop practice that should
run dead nuts.

Dale
 
iusedtoberich said:
I would not recommend a collet chuck for a portable setup. First, if you have one of the cue lathes, you will need to machine an adaptor for them to work. You really need good skills to do this properly. I consider myself to have good skills and had a hard time getting the entire assembly to run better than .003TIR when I was done.

One exception to this is if you go with a smaller collet size, there is a ready made adapter by some of the companies for Taig lathes.

I made an adapter for an ER40 series to use on my hightower lathe. I needed this size because I wanted to hold up to one inch OD. You can certainly get a smaller series if you only want to go up to .625.

The holder and 2 common size collets were maybe $250 or so, forgot now its been a couple years. I did buy Bison or comparable brand. I did not want import brand for this critical component.

The chuck is heavy. Much heavier than the stock hightower chuck. Its also much longer. Its solid steel.

I didn't like using it because there was no adjustability possible like there is with a chuck (an independent jaw chuck).

Also, I had made my delrin shaft collets with a lip on the front. So if I was doing a ferrule job, I could not remove it from the lathe unless the whole job was finished. The lip would prevent the delrin collet from sliding through the ER collet. And the larger od ferrule would prevent the shaft from sliding through.

The conclusion was there was no benefit in accuracy, and it was less convenient to use. It was smoother on your knuckles. But if you hit your knuckles hard enough to hurt with the 3 and 4 inch OD chucks on the cue lathes more than once a year you need more practice IMO.
Click to expand...

Thank you for the detailed reply. It seems that while collect chucks have their place they are probably not what I need/want in this instance. One thing I may not have mentioned is that I intend to use this as a through chuck on a dovetail bed. This way when I am finished working on a tip or ferrule I can open the chuck jaws, slide the tailstock live center up to the shaft and then slide the chuck back and forth to allow access to the entire shaft for cleaning or whatever. One setup, no remounting of the workpiece, chuck, cross slide or tailstock.

Again, thanks for all of the information.

Regards,
Stoney
 
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