I think it was three or four years ago when I was out in the dirty shop working on my lathe.

I ended up having a bit of a tooling problem with my lathe when the lathe chuck was near the widest opening on the chuck.

Suddenly, there was a bang, and things flew. When I stopped the lathe, I checked the chuck and found one of the jaws missing. I just made the assumption that the jaw had broken and went looking for another set of jaws.

Virtually impossible to find a matching set of jaws that would fit the chuck that I had on my lathe.

I gave up and bit the bullet and purchased a new 4 inch machinist chuck for the lathe and had a back plate turned for the new lathe so that there would be 0 run out on the new chuck. Since then, all has been well with the lathe and the tasks that I ask the lathe to complete.

Fast forward 3 or 4 years to this week.

I was doing some mega cleaning in the shop, going back into corners where no man had gone for many years. Suddenly, I saw a rusty lump on the floor. I picked it up and looked it over. I thought, could this be the missing jaw from my chuck that has been long gone? It did not appear to be damaged at all, just very rusty. So, I used the wire brush to remove most of the rust, and then used a file to clean the rust out of the channel in the jaw. I continued cleaning until the jaw was a nice perfect fit back into the chuck. Yes , it was the right jaw. I was missing jaw 3, and this was a jaw labeled 3. I was very surprised to find that the jaw was not damaged. Since this was jaw 3, it is the last jaw that goes into the chuck. So, if the chuck was near wide open, it would be very close to letting jaw 3 leave the chuck. Apparently, when I had the tooling malfunction, there was enough stress on the jaw to let it slip out of the chuck and fly away. When it left the lathe, it must have been on a downward turn because the jaw was only a couple of feet from the end of the lathe back in the corner.

Nice - when the lost are found again and to be completely undamaged and functional.

Golly, Roger, if all the snake guides I've fumbled could be found during a mega cleaning I would have at least a year's supply on hand. Unfortunately, such things in my work area de-materialize well before reaching the floor.

Try finding a nano micro guide. That's why I order extra

John,
One of the reasons that I have a solid white non carpet floor. If I ever lose anything, I just put a clean vacuum bag in the vacuum and vacuum the area.

Then, I remove the bag, cut it open and recover my lost items. it works every time.

I make a point of vacuuming the shop every morning before I start work. I went the floor and bench spotless before I start a day, so that anything that gets dropped easily shows up for recovery.


Be safe