I haven't seen much in what size chuck jaws should be used with blank size. Is there a standard? As an example for a 20" blank what size jaws and what size chuck are required?
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Chuck Jaws. What size
- Thread starter William Rogers
- Start date
john lucas
AAW Forum Expert
Dont know a definitive answer. Depends a little on what your doing to the blank as well as its size. For years I only had one chuck with 2" jaws. I turned everything with it. Now I have almost all sizes of jaws Vicmarc sells and use them all. Ideally you should use larger jaws for larger pieces but in reality that means larger tenons or recesses. I have seen size recommendations in chuck owners manuals but it's been too long to remember where.
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It depends somewhat on what you are making, but I don't want the chuck body nor jaws to influence the design. I also don't want it to restrict my access on the headstock side of the piece. So unless I need large jaws to hold a large piece of wood I normally use a Oneway Talon with #2 jaws or Vicmarc VM100 with standard jaws.
A 20" blank is really large so I would consider the Oneway Stronghold with #3 or #4 jaws or the Vicmarc VM120 with 148 mm jaws.
A 20" blank is really large so I would consider the Oneway Stronghold with #3 or #4 jaws or the Vicmarc VM120 with 148 mm jaws.
I use Vicmarc and PSI chucks—for me jaw size is pretty much determined by what I think the bottom will be. Choice is pretty much wide open as long as there is is good support and balance.
I splurged on a Nova Infinity and now have a complete set of jaws from #1 to #7 so I just make the tenon whatever size looks good for the bowl and pick a set to fit. The jaws all overlap in size which fixed a glaring error in the way the old jaws were sized.
I have a (Super)Nova with all the jaws on my larger lathe (will soon upgrade the Nova, though). My most frequently used jaws on the larger lathe are the #2. I think up to 16", I'm pretty comfortable using the #2 jaws. For something larger than 16" diameter, I'd go to the 100mm jaws.
My second-most used jaws are the smaller jaws (pin-like jaws) for boxes.
Not counting "reverse chucking" uses--e.g. Cole jaws or similar.
My second-most used jaws are the smaller jaws (pin-like jaws) for boxes.
Not counting "reverse chucking" uses--e.g. Cole jaws or similar.