Getting a Grip on Four-Jaw Lathe Chucks

 

Teknatool of New Zealand started the
woodturning chuck revolution in 1988.
Shown above is the business
end of its Nova Titan chuck.

Four-Jaw Lathe Chuck

With prices ranging from about $35 up to $280, you're probably asking yourself why you should buy a four-jaw chuck for your lathe. Here are some of the best reasons:
• Chucks provide quick, accurate, and positive centering of bowl blanks and standard turning squares.
• There's no need to glue a waste block to your turning blank or give up bowl-blank thickness to accommodate the screws needed to fasten it to a faceplate.
• When using a chuck to turn a bowl from green stock, you can rough it out, remove it from the lathe, and then later remount it with greater ease and convenience than with faceplate mounting.
• Accessory chuck jaws are available to hold work as small as a 1/4"-diameter tenon on a miniature vessel and as large as the rim of an 18"-diameter platter.
• You can turn a bowl and finish it inside and out with little or no trace of how it was held on the lathe.