You really only need a four jaw for two reasons
1 - you need to intentionally offset a part
2 - You are not going to turn all surfaces concentric (stock is finished size or second op)
Having two chucks is very nice if they are tight fitting because you can
remove them with work installed and not loose centering.
If the loose fitting chuck really bothers you, make a chuck adapter that fits tightly on the spindle and chuck. You will loose half an inch of space but will get a repeatable fit.
Aaron
Originally Posted by shadowdog500  Thanks for the responses.
I used suggestions from your responses as well as from several PMs I recieved and continued to play with it until I got the chuck to within half a thousands. This took just under 10 minutes to do. I could take more time to try to get it perfect. but I would want to get a good drill rod instead of the chinnees drill bit that I was using and would have to alter or fine tune my centering method because i feel it would take all day to get it dead on. Now that I read that "dead on" for a 1/2 inch rod does not necissarily mean dead on for another diameter rod makes me wonder if I do need a four jaw chuck.
I will keep what I have and try to learn all that I can before I start buying extras.
John, Thanks for the excellent link.
I video taped the chuck centering operation. The video is ten minutes long. If any of you want to spend ten minutes wathcing the video, I would really appreciate any comments or suggestions on anything you see.
Here is the link to the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hi_s0iQkRFA
Thanks,
Chris |