An alternative to a 4 jaw chuck

[Blogwitch]

As I was tinkering about in the shop, I decided to finish off a little job I should have done ages ago, purely because I hate four jaw work. Having just one good arm and hand to work with, four jaw setting up really is a PITA for me now.

Nothing too strenuous or mind numbing, just a few 8mm holes drilled and tapped in a logical pattern into my faceplate.




By doing this, it allowed me to bolt on my Keats angle plate.
IMHO they are a lot easier to set up than a four jaw. Maybe not as versatile as a 4 jaw independent with regards to size holding, but if you are making more than one of the same thing, it can save you hours of setting up.
Once you have tapped the Keats plate into it's final resting place for doing the job, and tweaked it up tight onto the faceplate, if you need to do another of the same thing, just slacken the two clamp screws, put in a new piece part, and away you go. With a four jaw, your have to reset the jaws every time you slacken the jaws off.




Holding a bit of square bar.




Then a bit of small round.



My four jaw is massive and too heavy for me to lift safely now, and until I get my new smaller chuck mounted up, this will do me just fine.

If you can fit one of these onto your faceplate, for the price, they really are a sound investment.

These people ship all over the world at reasonable rates, and the Keats is featured on their opening page

http://www.rdgtools.co.uk/

If you wanted to knock up something similar yourself, in the US, the Rike vice is a near enough alternative. Drawn up the the late Bill Reichart, the plans are available here.

http://littlemachineshop.com/products/product_view.php?ProductID=2304&category=

Another good thing about them is that they can be used on your drill press, mill or even a surface grinder, in fact anywhere where you want to stand something on end for machining.


John

 

[Blogwitch]

Hi John,

As you know, these posts are a little old as they have been shown on other sites as well, so you might not remember exactly what happened. I am resurrecting them on here as I am sure there are a lot of new people that have never seen devices like this, and because they are so versatile in what they can do, it merits the reshowing thing.

I did in fact get a brand new 6" 4 jaw, but it was very kindly donated by a good friend, I just needed to get a new backplate for it, and the old new 8" one went to a new home. But the new 6" one only gets used when the parts are too large for the Keats to handle.

I am not saying to rush out and buy one (the link I showed is, as far as I know, the only place that is selling them). I do have the drawings for a Keats Angle Plate, and if anyone [size=10pt]genuinely[/size] wants to make one, then send me an email. I will say now, it is not a job for a beginner to machining, that pleasure would fall to the Rike vice.

You are quite right, and I mentioned it in the post, the Keats is 'tapped' into exact position with the bolts just 'nipped' up, when it gives a zero reading for the offset required on the DTI (dial test indicator) all round, then the two bolts are white knuckled (tightened up hard). I usually use a bar of 1" Delrin (a hard easily machined type of nylon) or a plastic handled old screwdriver to persuade it into the correct position before final tightening. One thing I don't allow on any of my machines are hard hammers or drifts, they are for use in the bench vice.

As I said, they really score when you have more than one of the same part to make, plus, if you want to use it on other machinery.


John

 

[rleete]

Would you consider using this mounted to an angle block on a mill? In other words, instead of a faceplate, mounted to the vertical face of an angle block, which was then mounted on a mill. Like a V-block, but cantilevered off the angle plate instead of mounted directly to the mill bed.

 

[Blogwitch]

I suppose it could be used in any sort of situation you could think of, as they are rather robust. I have used mine bolted to the mill table, so mounting to an angle plate shouldn't be a problem.

But they really do shine when doing work in the lathe.

I suppose I must mention, when doing faceplate work on the lathe, with the unit way off centre, it does require a balance weight fitting directly opposite on the faceplate, otherwise when you start to wind the speed up a bit, it could become very unbalanced.


John