Saw a turning of a segmented birdhouse. Cole jaws had grips that looked to be 2-3 inches in length. Can one buy them or DIY? Thought of making some with appropriate size bolts and rubber or vinyl tubing as padding. Thanks.
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Extended grips for Cole Jaws?
- Thread starter John Torchick
- Start date
That is what I did for a bowl with a recurve edge - long bolts with rubber tubing.
Pat, that is awesome. Did you have any black marks from the rubber tubing? Thinking using clear tubing.
Look on Etsy for SegmentedTurner.He manufactures tall grippers for Cole jaws.Excellent quality.
I made some from the artificial wine bottle corks. Chuck them up on a 3 jaw scroll chuck, drill a hole and put a longer bolt in. They don't leave marks on bowls.
I found a set that I like from Rubber Chucky products - if I remember correctly, they are listed as S.O.S Jaws on the website.
I had also made a set of "extended" jaws from an extra set of cole jaws that I had found at an estate sale that were the same brand as the ones I already had. I just stacked the ones I had on top of the estate ones, added a nylon washer between & used longer bolts - that set up worked ok for me for what I was doing at the time, but I feel safer using the Rubber Chuck ones....
I have tried a bunch of different types of tubing to extend the Cole jaw grips height. I didn't like most of them. I finally came up with a reasonable source to extend the height that is manageable for most of my projects. I use predrilled stoppers. Source for the stoppers that work the best for me is from Widget Co. (https://www.widgetco.com/collections/epdm-rubber-stoppers). The stoppers are predrilled and the bolt for the Cole jaws fits snuggly in the hole. Some people have indicated that the use of black stoppers leaves black marks on the turned piece. I have never had that problem. If that a is a concern and you don’t mind paying a higher price you can get silicone stoppers from Stoneylab: https://www.amazon.com/stonylab-Sil...e-Hole/dp/B0F9YDH8S9/ref=ast_sto_dp_puis?th=1
https://www.amazon.com/stonylab-Sil...e-Hole/dp/B0F9YDH8S9/ref=ast_sto_dp_puis?th=1
https://www.amazon.com/stonylab-Sil...e-Hole/dp/B0F9YDH8S9/ref=ast_sto_dp_puis?th=1
And a good reason to open a bottle of wine!
john lucas
AAW Forum Expert
I can get rubber stoppers at Ace Hardware.
Tom Gall
TOTW Team
Another option. Quite a few discussions on this going back at least 5 years ago.
Below is my preferred solution.
Cole jaws to Flat jaws
Below is my preferred solution.
Cole jaws to Flat jaws
An advantage of the extended grips made/sold on Etsy by SegmentedTurner is the stability (and the resulting reduction in vibration of your workpiece), which comes from the combination of a wide base and a solid core (turned aluminium). The wide and rigid core allows you to tighten the tall grip on your piece without the grip deflecting or the piece going a bit off-centre, problems I have experienced (albeit not always) from all-rubber grips held with a 1/4" bolt. The "stiction" on these tall SegmentedTurner grips comes from the relatively thin and firm but non-marring sleeve (some kind of polymer tubing) around the solid core. For the reasonable price he charges (about $40 for 8), I think this is a very good solution.
I wanted longer grips, and came close to these features by turning 1" wide by 2" long dowels, then drilling them through (diameter of the bolts for the Cole jaws) on the lathe, and putting clear vinyl tubing (from Home Depot) over the dowels. If you get vinyl tubing with an inside diameter of about 1", you can turn your dowels to fit. Not as good as the SegmentedTurner grips, but easy / inexpensive to make and you can make them to fit your need.
I wanted longer grips, and came close to these features by turning 1" wide by 2" long dowels, then drilling them through (diameter of the bolts for the Cole jaws) on the lathe, and putting clear vinyl tubing (from Home Depot) over the dowels. If you get vinyl tubing with an inside diameter of about 1", you can turn your dowels to fit. Not as good as the SegmentedTurner grips, but easy / inexpensive to make and you can make them to fit your need.
I used long bolts with rubber & plastic tubing. Rubber over the allen head bolt and clear plastic over the rubber. The two layers give more padding, and the clear plastic tubing doesn't leave marks.
David, were the SOS jaws consistently shaped, or did you need to turn them? I've cobbled together my own solutions, but those have some interesting possibilities.
No Mark’s, but the tubing I used was clean and new… if old and oxidized it could smear I guess.
Sorry for the delay in responding, been busy, & haven't logged on for a while..... I did not shape the jaws - but that is an option according to the vendor. They are NOT a soft rubbery material; however they haven't marred any of the turnings I held in them. I have used them to secure items using both orientations - you will notice one side is wider than the other... they are about 2.5 " tall - they came with bolts & washers.
Attachments
Thanks for the intel. Interesting that yours were not molded from a soft material. The current ones appear to be made from a material that is similar to the other Rubber Chucky products. So, these would be even less likely to mar a piece, but based on my other Chucky products, I think that they might introduce some eccentricity unless they were touched up on the lathe. I may give them a try.
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If you are just turning off a nub or tenon, such that a solid, well-centred mount is not essential, these various rubber options will do the job, but you can achieve the same holding capacity and have a much firmer (i.e. less vibration) and better-centred mount if you use solid grips with a reasonably wide base and a thin but grippy contact surface. The design objective is to have a tall grip with as little deflection as possible. The only tall grips of this type that I have seen are the ones discussed above (sold by SegmentedTurner) or homemade ones of the same design, as described above: wide, solid core surrounded with a thin, grippy surface.