Thread: What to get - Metal lathe chuck vs wood chuck?

Do you have chucks for your large lathe ?
If so, it sounds like you should make a dedicated drum sander rather than a lathe?

Originally Posted by BobL

Do you have chucks for your large lathe ?
If so, it sounds like you should make a dedicated drum sander rather than a lathe?

Hi BobL,
I originally made the large wood lathe for turning large diameter logs into bowls (up to 1mt in diameter) but due to health reasons I wasn't able to go out and get trunks to turn down, so I made an attachment to convert that lathe into a 60cm drum sander which is something I now use a lot as the timber going through it is much lighter and easier to handle, and so I can make many more small projects, and at this point in time it is much easier for me to handle than a large trunk.

That is why I want a smaller wood lathe for all the little projects that pop up more frequently than the odd large bowl which I would use a faceplate to bolt the wood to anyway, and I don't have to worry about gumming up my big metal lathe.

Ed
Buy a woodturning chuck . Much safer and will grip better . With woodturning you are operating at much higher speeds than a metal lathe . If you are holding with a metal chuck , one catch and your job will go into orbit .Just use the standard jaws that come with the chuck until you have a special need for alternative jaws . M30 x3.5 is the most common thread size for wood lathes in Australia .
Ted

As Ted has mentioned stick with the woodturning chuck as its designed to hold wood. The metal lathe chuck jaws are too small in width and has far too much compression.

Originally Posted by BobL

Do you have chucks for your large lathe ?
If so, it sounds like you should make a dedicated drum sander rather than a lathe?

I agree

My big wood lathe currently is a dedicated drum sander as it is too much of a hassle to take the drum sander attachment off, but I will take it off at a later stage when I able to get some trunks to turn. At this stage I can't do any turning on it anyway as I have to drag it out of the garage as the wood chips/shaving go everywhere especially on big lumps of wood, also as it weighs over 600Kg that is not something I can maneuver around at the moment, considering there is gravel outside the shed. But as a drum sander I just attach a 100mm dust extraction hose and no dramas using it in the shed. As I also do welding in the shed, having wood shavings/sawdust every where is not a good thing!

In the meantime the minister for finance has authorized me to get the wood lathe chuck if I want so I will probably order it up next week, but first I will talk to the seller about the RPM's and the size timber that it can handle before I decide which way to go. It may or not be a top of the line wood chuck but hopefully it should do what I need it to, my only concern is that the standard jaws that it comes with can't grip small diameter timber, but I should be able to machine up some sort of clamping mechanism to hold smaller pieces in it, although if I have to make such a mechanism I might be able to make one to do the metal lathe chuck. Decisions, decisions!!

Was looking at this one:
AYAO Wood Lathe Chucks M30 X 3.5 | eBay

Anybody used one of these?

Ed
I have never heard of this brand of chuck , it may be OK but if you are prepared to pay just a little more , Timberbits are selling 100mm Vicmarc chucks for $219 and you will have a chuck to last a lifetime .
Ted

Ed
I have never heard of this brand , it may be OK , but if you are prepared to pay just a little more Timberbits are selling Vicmarc 100mm chucks for $219 and you will have a chuck that will last a lifetime .
Ted

FWIW, my testing has shown that a drum sander requires far more than a 100 mm hose to extract all the fine dust (and it's the fine dust that effects us more than chips) it generates. At the mens shed we have 2 x 100 mm hoses connected to a ClearVue cyclone extracting from a 635 mm wide drum sander and it is relatively poor at removing the fine dust it generates. As soon as the warranty on the sander runs out it will be modified to 2 x 150 mm ducts to see if that helps.

Drum sanders are about the worst machine in a wood workshop for making fine dust.
Lathes are also bad, but will make less fine dust than a sander if the turner is adept a turning and especially sharpening and keeps the tools sharp and minimises the use of paper.
Unless really effective dust extraction is used this would seen to makes an even stronger case for building a mobile drum sander that you can move outside.

Originally Posted by turnerted

Ed
I have never heard of this brand , it may be OK , but if you are prepared to pay just a little more Timberbits are selling Vicmarc 100mm chucks for $219 and you will have a chuck that will last a lifetime .
Ted

They have a local importer in Brisbane, they are Asian but speak reasonable English, as for the price, my budget is close to Zip, so struggling to get the $180 bucks for this one, too many other commitments as this time. Hence the reason I am making this lathe out of scraps I have laying in the shed (apart from the chuck).

100mm hose seems to work quite well on my drum sander, I don't know if it is because the tube I have surrounded the drum is a close fit or not but not much seems to escape it. There is a little bit of dust that doesn't get picked up but that just falls onto the conveyor belt at the end of the timber I am sanding and then onto the floor, the extractor has a 2HP motor driving it. When I used the big wood lathe in the shed I had shavings and dust everywhere and several inches thick around the lathe, that is why from then on I used it outside the shed.

Before popping for the chuck you may want to be sure there are different jawsets available for it. I went the cheaper route and then found out the jaws that came with it were the only ones available. Wound up having the buy another chuck to get the jaws I needed.

Sold off a Dewalt radial arm saw I bought recently which gave me some cash, so went down to Vicmark today and picked up a VM120 chuck today, came with a standard sized set of jaws so started making a small set of jaws to fit it this afternoon which will go down to about 18mm, will finish it off tomorrow, also found a very cheap new single phase 3HP motor so added that to the shopping list as well. Had a choice of 3 phase or single phase motors but decided it will be easier to resell the lathe as a single phase version when I eventually retire from pottering around in the shed.

Slowly getting all the bits together to make it into a workable lathe, still need a set of wheels so I can wheel it out the shed to do turning on it. Started making some silky oak bowls a few years ago but never finished them due to a run of medical reasons so now will have no excuse. <label for="rb_iconid_7"></label>