Chucks: Review & Restoration

articles from Machinery Magazine
reprinted by Lindsay Publications

Here are a series articles starting in 1913 that discuss chucks. You get photos and discussions on a couple of unusual chucks patented in England, but probably never marketed successfully.

You get a lengthy two part article on lathe chucks - the types then in use, their design, and their advantages. Chucks started with dogs on face plates and evolved through scroll chucks. You'll see self-centering bell chucks, brass finisher's "clamb" chucks, wrench operated collet chucks, ways of locking internally threaded work, false jaws for collets, reversible dove-tailed jaws, wheel chucks for holding disks, and all kinds of work holders not normally seen these days.

You also get a lengthy article on drill chucks. Here you'll find great variety designs with ball bearings, roller bearings, pivot cam jaws, automatic chucks with floating drive, and much more. Lots of cross-sectional drawings. History and ideas galore...

Really fascinating is the series of letters written to the magazine over more than a year's time by machinists debating the best way to true up worn chuck jaws. It's fun to sit in and listen to these experienced machinists argue about why the other guy's method won't work so well, and how they have a better way of doing it. It's almost like being in a room full of Dave Gingerys. (Isn't THAT a scary thought!) Even if you never have to true up your chuck jaws, just the debate that rages will teach you important lessons not only about machining, but about thinking through a problem in general. Good stuff. Nothing on restoring the scroll mechanism on a three-jaw chuck.

Good reading. Low price. Heavily illustrated. 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 booklet 48 pages

No. 22318 ... $5.95