Thread: Making lathe chuck soft jaws?

• None of the lathe chucks, that I have access to, have soft jaws.
  Or rather, the bases that allow you to firmly attach soft jaws.
• The chucks I have that you can still buy parts for(*),
  and that might have had soft jaws,
  are prohibitively expensive?

Has anyone ever tried milling/grinding chuck jaws?

I was thinking of trying to use a pantograph to copy the teeth (instead of doing all that precision measurement, alignment and rotary milling)




* My Hercus; Pratt-Bernerd 4" never offered them. Taylor 4.5", same deal.
TOS IU125 is a maybe:
https://www.tossvitavy.com/media/sou...radni_dily.pdf
if I can decipher the language barriers.

The Hafco AL-336 and AL-1000 have chucks that are not the same as the current models' Toolmaster K11 chucks. I could try taking jaws out and going to Hare & Forbes with a vernier/micrometer, but don't like my chances.

Id consider annealing a set of hard jaws then machining them or hard milling them?

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I have heard of people machining the tops off one piece jaws, and converting them to two piece jaws like American style jaws. The made sets for inside jaws, outside jaws and pie style soft jaws. They just kept the part that runs on the scroll, and made the other parts to suit. I have an idea that it may have been Harold Hall who wrote an article about the process, but it was years ago and I can't be definite. Good luck,
Rob.

The Harold Hall article that I think you are referring to was in MEW 146 (Jan 2009), where he covered machining (soft) jaws from scratch.
It is quite an involved process as he mills the scroll teeth into the jaws.

Michael

IIRC Stefan Gotteswinter on YouTube did a video of making some jaws and if memory serves he cut the teeth for the scroll with a pantograph.
The video would be 3-4years ago I think.

Edit - it was 6 years ago - just search YT for his name and chuck jaws

Steve

Originally Posted by Michael G

The Harold Hall article that I think you are referring to was in MEW 146 (Jan 2009), where he covered machining (soft) jaws from scratch.
It is quite an involved process as he mills the scroll teeth into the jaws.

Michael

Perhaps so Michael, but I have just had a look and my collection of MEW starts around issue number 116, was a bit hit and miss for the start, but by about issue 120 is pretty solid with only 4 misses up to issue 148, but issues 145 and 146 are in that lot. LOL. Perhaps he repeated that article on his own website, or maybe a variation of it but I seem to remember an article where a set of one piece jaws was converted into two piece jaws. I also have a collection of Machinist's Workshop and The home Shop Machinist from The Village Press stable going back some years, and that could have been where I saw the article. I still have the hunch it was a HH article, but who knows, my brain seems to be 1/2 porridge at times so it may have been an online thread somewhere! Cheers,
Rob.

Originally Posted by OxxAndBert

IIRC Stefan Gotteswinter on YouTube did a video of making some jaws and if memory serves he cut the teeth for the scroll with a pantograph.
The video would be 3-4years ago I think.

Edit - it was 6 years ago - just search YT for his name and chuck jaws

Steve

Thanks Steve, I will check tomorrow, my pillow is calling for me;-)

Originally Posted by Michael G

The Harold Hall article that I think you are referring to was in MEW 146 (Jan 2009)

page 12.

Michael

Ca Lem is doing a six jaw chuck build on his YouTube channel, part one shows the making of the jaws and cutting the scrolls. It’s a pretty complex setup the way he did it.

Hi Guys,

I have made several variations of soft jaws over the past few years, non were particularly difficult to make !

Small_Gear-02.JPG Small_Gear-01.jpg Soft_Jaws-01.jpg

These were the first ones that I made. I used slices from an old toothed shaft.

27-10-2018-017.JPG 27-10-2018-015.JPG 27-10-2018-014.JPG

This was another variation. I used M6 cap screws to hold pieces of alloy bar onto some existing jaws.

27-10-2018-001.JPG 18-02-2020-003.JPG 18-02-2020-002.jpg

And this set were alloy fingers screwed onto some existing 100 mm PB jaws purchased from Cromwells tool merchants. They are soft jaws drilled and tapped to accept some sacrificial ones. I paid about £20 inc tax a couple of years ago. Cromwells stock soft jaws for a range of PB chucks.

Thanks Baron. I particularly like the "toothed shaft" ones!



The one job I have that needs soft jaws is about 2" diameter, so I either need to make them for my larger chuck, or for the external jaws of the TOA.



1) I saw one set of soft jaws someone made, that sort of hook into external jaws:
2362447_orig.jpg 9871785_orig.jpg
but that looks quite elaborate.



2) Had the crazy idea of casting alloy around my existing jaws.
It's a shame that Aluminium's melting point would temper the jaws.
Maybe Zinc.
Or resin?



3) Another option is these weird woodworking chucks:
s-l1600.jpgs-l1600-2.jpg
that have two piece jaws which would be easy to bolt soft jaws onto?
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/284561191852
I don't really need/want another chuck, but for $131 shipped?
As long as they aren't cast from lead or pewter, they might do the job.

Originally Posted by BaronJ

Cromwells stock soft jaws for a range of PB chucks.

I tried their web site, but it seems they only seem to stock Indexa and Kennedy jaws?
https://www.cromwell.co.uk/shop/cutt...oryId=39020602

(RotaGrip has some PB stuff:
http://www.rotagriponline.com/index....limitstart=270
but none for my odd 4" PB, which is actually a 4.5" Pratt)

Back in 2008 I made brass jaws for my WW lathe chucks.

sideopen.jpg

The are leather lined to hold wooden chisel handles for polishing
jaw1.jpg

Check out the eccentric engineering flexichuck perfect for your job i think.

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Originally Posted by BobL

Back in 2008 I made brass jaws for my WW lathe chucks.

sideopen.jpg

The are leather lined to hold wooden chisel handles for polishing
jaw1.jpg

Gee Bob, they look really sweet, did you cast them before machining, or machine from solid bar stock? I would hate to think what that would cost today, but they are real lathe bling

They were turned from pieces I picked up from, would you believe, the scrap bin at work about 20 years ago. They had many metres of rod of that size left over from a large project and were having a clean out and decided the short pieces could go!

I only wish I had picked up more of the pieces.