Q: 5" 4-jaw chuck on mini lathe.

[Deviant]

I know there are alot of people that run 4" 4-jaw chucks on the mini lathe.

Is anyone running a 5"?

I see that LMS has one with the back plate forsale. Is there a reason to go with the 4" over the 5".

Getting tired of trying to realign parts in the "self-centering" (laughs) 3-jaw chuck.

Might end up trying a collect, but alot of the stuff I've been trying to turn down would be too big for a collet.

Thanks.

[fyffe555]

I've got the LMS 5" chuck and backplate adapter, wanted to turn some 2" stock.

It's big and heavy and the mini mill does have to make an effort to spin it up. It's better to start things slowly rather than just wack it on and off. It seems to centre upbetter than the 4" chuck for some reason, something is easier to setup. The bigger chuck and backplate was a bit unbalanced when I first installed it. Had to move it around on the backplate and drilled a little to balance but I understand that's unusual. Strongly suggest good quality studs and nuts for the assembly. It is significantly longer than the std chuck and so does take a chunk out of what little distance there is 'between centres'. Another issue I didn't think of is that you can now easily hold work larger than the stock cross slide and toolpost can readily machine. Some mods like a QC toolpost and an extension on the crossslide travel worked out well. Once its turning, the extra mass of the chuck seems to reduce chatter too.

[CarveJunky]

Deviant,

I run the 5" chuck when I have some big or awkward parts to turn. I've enclosed 3 pic's. One of the pic's is of a piece of 4-3/8 shaft stock I am turning to make a bender, the other 2 picks are for bearing blocks for my X3 cnc conversion. I haven't had any issues at all with the chuck, I can dial anything in were the dial indicator barely wiggles... good enough for what I'm doing. sorry for the blurry pic of the shaft material...

Carvejunky