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Getting a Grip on Four-Jaw Lathe Chucks

When first introduced, four-jaw chucks were viewed by many as a luxury just for professional turners. But they offer so many advantages that anyone from novice level on up would benefit from owning one.

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Four-Jaw Lathe Chuck

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.

Continued on page 2: How a chuck works

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Comments (4)

rwm50 wrote:

myplace i have the same unit, you need a 1" + 10 tpi thread type chuck

4/3/2013 05:31:05 PM Report Abuse

christopher_sta wrote:

I have a 4 Jaw chuck ordered at Busy Bee Tools for my Craftsman lathe. 3/4 X 16 TPI tread pattern.

11/27/2011 10:09:28 AM Report Abuse

mcplace wrote:

I need a 4jaw chuck for a Sears Craftsman wood lathe model# 351.217150 where can I find one. Sears says this model is obsolete any brand might as lon as the thread pattern match.Can some one help

4/23/2011 12:50:03 PM Report Abuse

helmich1 wrote:

Very informative! Metalworking 4 jaw chucks work differently, but that is another ballgame.

3/24/2011 10:38:22 AM Report Abuse