Take this no-crank lathe trick for a spin

When turning a bunch of pepper grinders as gifts, the regular cranking in and out of my lathe's live center became tiresome. To minimize the nuisance, I turned a small wood jam chuck to fit the center of the lathe's tailstock handwheel, drilled a hole to fit a screwdriver bit, and epoxied the bit into the hole. By chucking the bit into my cordless drill, I can quickly move the live center in and out with just a finger twitch.
—Mark Heatwole, Annandale, Va.