Acquired an older Atlas/Craftsman 7122 Lathe. The headstock is 1"x10tpi which is a very unique size and hard to find. Most likely I'll need an adapter.

What chuck is recommended for turning grips/handles? I'm new to the chuck game and I see there are metal chucks and woodturning chucks. Is one better than the other?

Are 4 jays better than 3 jaws? any particular jaw style better for gripping a mandrel?

Thanks

For what you'll be doing any self centering chuck, 3 or 4 jaw, will be very helpful. These, paired with set of spigot jaws, will hold mandrels, square turning stock (wood or acrylic) and a host of other things.

Collects are fine if you're only turning on mandrels.

............

Jess,
Here is a 1x10 backplate:

[www.shars.com]

Here is a matching 4 inch 3 jaw self centering Shars chuck:

[www.shars.com]

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I have one of the Shars 4 inch 3 jaw self centering chuck and it is an excellent chuck.

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If you order the pair, one can normally, just bolt the back plate to the chuck and have it work well. But, now and then, there might be a bit of run out on the chuck.
If that happens, remove the headstock shaft from your lathe.
Then, take the three items - headstock shaft, chuck backplate, and chuck to a good metal machine shop and ask them to true up the backplate for a perfect match.

They will take the headstock shaft and clamp it into their big metal lathe.
Then, they will screw on the new 4 inch backplate.
Then, they will turn on the lathe, and do some additional machining on the new backplate to get a 0 runout or wobble on the face of the new chuck backplate.
Then, they will bolt the chuck onto the backplate and do a final check for run out. If necessary, they will tweak one of the parts again, to be sure that you have essentially 0 runout.

This is the nature of a screw on chuck. i.e. for a perfect 0 runout, each backplate needs to be placed on the headstock shaft of the lathe in question and then machine the face of the chuck backplate for 0 runout or wobble.

Threads, by their very nature are not always 100% identical. Thus the reason for using a press in style chuck, like an Mt1, Mt2, or MT3 taper lock mount. With a taper lock mount, it is easy to have a perfect taper on both the lathe head stock shaft as well as the chuck backplate. But, if you have a taper lock mount on a chuck, you give up center clearance space on the for the thru hole of the chuck - if this is of importance to you.

Good luck and best wishes with the new - to you - lathe.

The collets work great for turning cork on mandrels, I bought a set of amazon by PSI for $100

It appears that the head stock shaft has an MT2 taper.

So, you should be able to use MT2 - accessories in the head stock shaft:

[www.lathes.co.uk]

Assuming that you do have an MT2 taper in your head stock shaft, you should be able to use this chuck if you wish:

[www.pennstateind.com]

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I have several of these keyless chucks for use in both the head stock and tail stock for various purposes.

Best wishes

I have both 3 & 4 jaw and find I use the 4 primarily as it will gro square stock of both cork and woods.

Thanks for the feedback everyone.

Going with a Drill Chuck w/ a #2 Taper for starters. If it doesn't work out, Than i can upgrade.

Also picked up a new live center for the tailstock.

Jess,
The drill chuck at the head stock works well when using mandrels.

However, if actually holding a piece of wood, cork, butt end of a rod, you still need a 3 or 4 jaw chuck.

Another downside of a drill chuck is that you can not feed the butt end of a long mandrel through the head stock t shorten the mandrel for less potential whipping, if the extra length is not needed for the grip that you might happen to be turning.

However, the easy solution to this issue is to simply have a chop saw with an abrasive cut off wheel handy and if your mandrel is too long, just chop it to the length needed. However, once chopped you can not glue it together.

For myself, rather than using expensive drill rod mandrels which do work very well, I use the largest diameter common hardware store threaded rod that I can use with my drilled out grip that I am shaping.

To that end, when making a cork grip, I drill and ream each piece of cork to match the diameter of the rod blank at the location, where that piece of cork or grip will be used. Then, I use the largest size threaded rod that will fit into the smallest section of the grip that is to be shaped. For the parts of the grip that have been bored larger, I use masking tape to build up the mandrel so that the built up mandrel is a nice fit for the full length of the grip being turned. Then, I use an appropriate sized washer and nut at each end of the grip to secure the grip onto the threaded rod before beginning to shape. Then, when the lathe work is complete, I just chuck the threaded rod into a variable speed 1/2 inch drill and unscrew the threaded rod from the grip and do a final reaming of the grip for final fit to the rod blank before gluing.

Because the Atlas is an older lathe, the on line @#$%& sites are often a very good location to find a used 3 or 4 jaw chuck that will fit the somewhat rare 1x10 tpi chuck threads that you need for your head stock.

But, as is commonly said, your lathe may be old, but it is still trusty and will do an excellent job for you.

Jess,
While a drill chuck may be relatively inexpensive and easy to find, possibly even a good place to start, they are not as precise as a 3 or 4 jaw chuck in addition to not allowing the piece to pass through the center which can prove to be a huge asset. Roger afforded very good advice and his veteran knowledge and experience should be considered and followed. Allow me to offer two additional beneficial things which will assist with concentricity; 1.) To insure the jaws are concentric to the centerline of the lathe, slightly machine the clamping surface of the jaws while on the lathe by clamping a washer at the inner portion of the jaws and then machining; make certain the washer is perfectly round/ machined. After machining you will have to remove the burr left where the washer was clamped, 2.) Whenever I use a lathe, I always index the part to the chuck; I mark the part where the #1 jaw is clamping it. If the part is removed from the chuck but needs to be rechecked for addition procedures, aligning the mark on the part to the #1 jaw will insure concentricity.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

I never recommend, especially to a novice just starting out turning to use allthread as a mandrel. They are very soft, flexable, and an excellent way to have an accident and get hurt. Even more so with using a jacobs chuck in the headstock and a live center in the tailstock. Since this is a wood lathe, I would also be interested on how one proceeds to machine the jaws concentric to the lathe centerline

Ron Weber



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/01/2020 06:39PM by Ron Weber.

thanks for all the feedback guys. I know nothing about machining. If and when I get a 3 or 4 jaw chuck, I'll pray that it doesn't wobble.

Ron,
The way that you machine the jaws on the chuck on a wood lathe is to remove the head stock shaft and chuck from the lathe.

Take the head stock shaft and chuck to a machine shop with a good large metal lathe where they will insert the head stock shaft into their metal lathe and machine the jaws as needed on the metal lathe.

When I purchased new plain back chucks for my wood lathe and new partially machined backplates for the chucks, I removed the head stoch shaft and all of the chuck back plates and chuck and sent them to the machine shop with a big metal lathe.

They inserted the head stock chucks into the metal lathe, put on each back plate in turn and machined it as needed for a perfect non run out or wobble back plate. Then, the chuck was bolted to the back plate and the jaws were checked to be concentric and if need machined to perfection.

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This is standard procedure to unsure that a chuck that is threaded onto a particular head stock shaft and its threads have the back plate machined for 0 run out so that any variation in the threads of the head stock shaft can be machined out on the potential of the wobble in the back plate by truing the run out or wobble in the partially machined back plate to be true with no wobble or run out when the lathe head stock is turning.

Then, of course, the head stock shaft and all chucks and chuck parts are returned, reassembled and reinstalled into the lathe for years of perfect wobble freel, or 0 degrees of run out.

It sounds like you do not have a 7122. I think you have a machine lathe. Post up a picture or two for me. Thanks.
And don't order anything 1-10 until then. I might be saving you a bunch of money.

Mac



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/2020 11:04AM by John McCleish.

Roger, I am quite well aware of the procedure, but this is a novice, and may not want to dive into spending excessive amounts of money just to calibrate a lathe, which as far as cork or inserts a small amount of runout is more than acceptable. It is not precision machining he is attempting to acheive.

Ron,
You are certainly correct that, in the grand scheme of things, a small amount of run-out on a cork or foam handle is acceptable if not expected from a wood lathe which is inherently much less accurate than a metal lathe. Accumulatively, a little bit of run-out in the spindle threads combined with a little bit of run-out in the jaws combined with a little bit of run-out in the drill chuck can produce an annoying amount of run-out in the piece unless extremely lucky to have all align properly to cancel each other out. Roger and I were simply attempting to offer our observations through experience to those interested or in need. By all means, anyone should mount all the pieces first to see how it performs; if acceptable they are home-free; if not, there is a way to correct it.

Mark Talmo
FISHING IS NOT AN ESCAPE FROM LIFE BUT RATHER A DEEPER IMMERSION INTO IT!!! BUILDING YOUR OWN SIMPLY ENHANCES THE EXPERIENCE.

John McCleish Wrote:
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> It sounds like you do not have a 7122. I think
> you have a machine lathe. Post up a picture or
> two for me. Thanks.
> And don't order anything 1-10 until then. I
> might be saving you a bunch of money.


It's an Atlas 7122...like Roger posted.