Installed an older South Bend model C in my workshop last week. A bare bones unit that needed cleaning and care, it came with a back plate but no chuck. So your instruction very useful indeed, as I continue to build the machine for general turning. Thanks for the post. M.
Thank you for the "inch" conversions as they give a point of reference to those of us not intimately familiar with divisions of millimeters as they compare!
@@Sammus7t yeah agreed, the only equivalents I remember are the most common ones to me. Half inch, and eighth inch. Not quarter for some reason lol I always end up dividing half by two to figure it out.
Stefan: much thanks, respect, gratitude to you and your hard, keen work. People like you are exactly what keeps life flowing even in the cold/dark times. thanks again for great stuff like this!
The first time I ever used a lathe was in high school in 2005 and my shop teacher had fitted all the lathes with a safety switch that was located down a tube that could only be pressed when you inserted the chuck key into the tube it was a pretty ingenious way to make sure no kids accidentally turned on the machine with the chuck key in the chuck
Our apprenticeshop has the same thing on the mills. I am very much against it, because it teaches them, that the machine is harmless and nothing will happen if they leave the key in the chuck and turn the machine on..
Very interesting to hear you describe how each of the parts were (or may have been) manufactured. Also interesting to see the inner workings of a scroll wheel chuck!
I love the precision that you are able to achieve without the use of computerized equipment. Your dialog is common sense and at times filled with subtle humor. Continue your excellent presentations, please.
You sir are a real gentleman for kindly sharing your knowledge with us. I just LOVE watching this kind of content and your videos are among the best I've ever watched. Thank you and cheers from Brazil!!!
My Chinese Lathe came with 2 chucks (4 jaw standard + 3 jaw optional). They both look very simular to the type of your chuck. From new I dismanteled, deburred and greased them. I am very happy that they both run quite true. Always just a few hundreth of a milimeter. Once I had a new hydraulic operated chuck from a well known German company. Taking it off for the anual mainenace shocked me. The bolts that fix it to the spindle seemed to have "sunk" into the material. I checked the hardeness by comparing the imprint of an hardened ball by hitting it with a hammer. Even ST-37 had less imprint. The manufacturers representative came just one day after the phone call and changed it to a new one. To check a new chuck BEVORE mounting is not only a good idea when it comes from china. :D
This is a great video. Not everyone wants to wait forever, hoping they can save enough to buy expensive equipment, so they get what they can. Besides, a person can learn much more by taking their tools apart, polishing parts, replacing some parts and resembling them. You also get a much better feel for how smoothly your machines should function and how to dial them in to your personal taste. I've done this with a lathe and a mill with great results. Cheers
I've always gotten along pretty well with "cheap Chinese crap." You know in advance it has to be cleaned and de-burred so the work you do isn't done by Chinese labor and that lowers the price. And if the chuck or whatever needs some minor adjustment and re-fitting, that also lowers the price. So, yes, it can be a kit of assembled parts but when it's cleaned and fettled and tuned up, your new Chinese widget is pretty good enough for most work and since you've been all through the item you know what to do to compensate for error or deficiency - or not use it at all - for demanding work. You pay the low price and do the final work yourself or you pay a higher price and get roughly the same result (leaving premium quality articles out for the moment). What I don't understand is the reason for the blistering contempt from some quarters. If you don't like the "kit of parts" approach, don't buy into it. Complaining you can't work with stuff other people can make serviceable is like admitting you can't make lemonade from lemons. Thanks Stefan. You provide us with another valuable lesson. I'll refer the noobs to this video for info on cleaning, detailing, and inspection of three jaw chucks.
While people lament the end of US production as it was they forget or are unaware of the truth that until the rise of consumer grade throwaway products the standard procedure was always to tear down clean and lube the new tool or parts when they arrived. You didnt simply take your new thing out of the box and put it straight to work, not if you wanted it to work right anyway.
Nice walkthrough of everything you should check and test on a chuck. that could be applied to any make, especially used and the infamous Chinese chucks. Thanks for sharing mate!
Buy something perfect, and that's all you get out of it along with probable good outcome, but nothing else. Buy something that may need upgrading or work and you gain knowledge along the way and knowledge is power. Great tutorial! Thanks for sharing with us :)
Love your depth gauge ste up. I have been trying to have the setup that Whom, uses on his lathe, when he does longitudinal cuts. My lathe has fairly small V guide, insufficient to clip a magnetic dial gauge too. I think I can sort of permanent fix the gauge, and then use an adjustable for, as you have done. 70 years old, and still learning. Thanks mate.
For me a super interesting videoclip. As a woodworker mainly just recently got fascinated by metalworking the super tight tolerances are som impressive. I am trying to understand what can be carried over to the more or less ancient art of woodworking. Thank you for a very pedagogic clip!!
Great video Stefan. I've just bought a rotary indexer with a 5" chuck for the mill and they are still in the box and the first thing I'm going to do now is strip the chuck down and clean it out and lube it up. I would never have stripped one before, but now I know what's inside I'm going to give it ago.
Watching this 6 years after production (!) and still very helpful. I noticed that you apparently didn't mark the jaws and chuck as you removed them. I thought it was important to make sure they each went back into their original slots -- because they're ground "true" in place at the factory.
If it can help, I have the same chuck type; the numbers are on the side of the jaws (in the side slot, you can see them at minute 6:20). Same goes for the chuck, but the numbers are inside the grooves, so not so handy to spot them (you can see it at minute 33:50).
Pretty much the same as the Zither "premium" chuck I purchased from Arc Euro Trade Co Ltd. It had the jaw guidance slots ground non-planar, there was a bit of meat right next to the undercuts making it bind in the chuck body. AET/Zithers comment on this was that "Indians like it tighter", while the real reason is sloppy workmanship and improper grinding wheel dressing (or lack of such). I made a video of it. Later I also found out that the jaws axial steps were ground with the same problem, the grinding wheel been worn from its edge and thus creating a non-flat surface. Basically the steps have a nice radii in them when looking from the side. All in all, the price is low, but best to remember that you are actually purchasing a project and not a finished tool.
Great video. I'm going to disassemble and clean my chucks now. I wish I could acquire a small bench grinder like yours - everything here is much bigger.
I believe the results of this is that say that these low priced chucks can be made to work for us that just cannot afford an expensive brand. Some us just have to make do with what we can afford. I have 5 chucks of this type and now I know how to make them better.
Less than 2 minutes into this one and I was already chuckling Stefan. I had a bit of grinding dust as well throughout my Taiwan built mill although not very much. So it's not just mainland China equipment you have to clean. Excellent tutorial on how to check, dis-assemble, clean, and then regrind where required. There no competition for somebody like Bison, but for what your using it for it should work well and the price was pretty fair considering the work that went into it. The Chinese are learning fast and they seem to be getting a lot better at producing more accurate tooling.
I think China has always been able to make precision things, it is the retailers who ask them to cut corners so they can be sold cheap. I believe there is a certain backlash against the ultra cheap crap, too many tools returned to retailers as faulty, so quality gets better, or better enough to reduce returns. Like an auction, things will find their own value or in this case find their necessary quality to keep the punters quiet. Or does that sound too cynical?
Not cynical at all imo. More logical than anything. China doesn't have a space program or long range nuclear tipped ballistic missile's built using inferior tools. Yes they import a lot of top quality CNC equipment, but they are completely capable of building top quality tooling as well. But not at rock bottom prices. So your point is more than valid. When it comes to competitive high quality goods cheaper labor costs have very little to do with final cost to build to that high standard. I've been burned trying to buy tooling too cheap and that's my fault since I should have known better. Today I still refuse to buy any off shore built cutting tools. My lathe is Chinese but I researched it as well as possible before buying. So far it's ok.
Nice job. I have found that some of the pricier Chinese products are made from marginally better materials, so the first thing to do before use is to re-engineer them. I've had 89 degree angle plates that needed squaring up; a band-saw that needed everything doing, and a pillar-drill that needed re-squaring and aligning. Once these machine tools have been sorted, they seem to last quite well in the hobby workshop. My drill-press is now 35 years old, bandsaw 30, etc etc and still reasonably accurate, ie fit for purpose.
The helical ring and large gear assembly are obviously made using the powdered metal manufacturing method. You can tell this by the non machined surface of the gears and helical groove. That is what the debris is inside the Chuck. This is done to save manufacturing costs of course. You do get what you pay for so it would be unreasonable to expect perfection from such an inexpensive product. Powdered metal is used for many more American made products than people know. In fact if you have a Polaris quad I assure you that you have powdered metal parts in your transmission. I know because I designed and created the machine drawings from them.
Thank you for showing this. I don't know why I never thought to grind a chuck (or at least its jaws) that way, or to put a digital readout on my surface grinder. It seems quite obvious now... :)
Chucks aren't the only tools in what they leave the grit, they do it also in hydraulic jacks and more, got to do their cleaning before use or else the tools won't last... When it's cleaned you can apply a Bison or Rhom sticker on the surface... ;)
Very informative vid thanks, I can see a strip down and clean of the 3 jaw on my Chinese mini lathe could be in order. One aspect I would have liked you to cover is run-out on the jaws. This is likely to be a major concern for lathe owners at this price point I would think.
one thing i can say is, if you want to learn, buy cheap chinese stuff! by the time you learn how to use it, you will also be able to build another one from scratch considering how many times you will have taken it apart. If you get a nice haas the thing just works to well, you never get the joy of ripping apart compound slide and resurfacing all its bushings.
That was better than I expected.. It wouldn't last so well in heavy use, but for the odd job here and there on an otherwise collet lathe, it looks more accurate than the used quality chucks I've got on a Hardinge taper.
Another fantastic job by Stefan! I have a long way to go to get my shop "Stefanized"! ...thought you were maybe going to lower the recess to re-install the badge, but probably make your own. My hero!
Regarding the grinding of the jaws: You could just chuck something in and then face them directly in the lathe right? Or would you advise against that because of the large interruption in the cut?
Phil Vandelay - Although it can be done or improved just as you describe. The way he did is way more accurate. That part is treated alone, independently of other cumulative errors already present in the lathe (spindle, back plate, etc...) ;-)
Thanks for sharing this, I recently bought a Chinese lathe with a similar chuck fitted. I've not dismantled it yet as it seems ok, going to replace it with a 4 jaw in a few days so I'll take a look inside then. Probably keep it in case I need to turn hex stock, might mount it on a rotary table...
Don't throw out the three jaw! I did that when I got the lathe I have right now. I changed it to a four jaw and sold the three jaw. And I realy missed it pretty quickly :D
bluehandsvideo - The crude reality is that any chuck from whatever manufacturer and price tag. Will be in worse condition than this one, regarding debris inside, in 6 months of regular workshop use. As boring as it seems this should be part of "regular maintenance schedule" in any workshop. Just like sweeping the floor. ;-)
Even european manufacturers recommend grinding the jaws on new lathe chucks. Danke "stefang" für deine gut gemachten Videos. Greetings from Spain (prisoner of covid-19)
I can tell by looking at that Chuck it is made in the factory that makes the grizzly Chucks for their mini lathes. There smaller series lathes spin it incredible rate I can't even remember the model number that I had before I threw it in the junk pile with all my might but the top end on that was something like 2500 rpm. It had a three quarter horse DC motor I still have that and a controller that I'm dying to do something with because the motors themselves are the best thing on the whole machine. And I think I might make a high-speed diamond wheel that has the controller for Speed control that will always be turned up all the way I have no doubt LOL but anyway it will handle that speed
The Chinese are no idiots they know exactly what they do they calculate very good so what you pay is what you get but if a machinist is able to make precise parts why cant he transform a not so good made chuck into a good usable... Stefan proves it all the time
Very entertaining as well as informative, Stefan. Although it is not relevant for your use, it would have been interesting to know how bad the runout was. Keep up the great work.
I think you can easily grind the spiral mounting the part in some rotary axis (C axis in a CNC lathe) and then just cordinate it with a linear axis (X).
15:00 "Not sure how to grind this spiral" I think it is a constant radius spiral.The rotary table advance has a constant ratio with the mill X advance.... r (1- cosine a)...... one degree rotation on rotary table is followed by (R) (0.0001523) in X direction on mill table.
Wow.. this post of yours is almost 3 years old but to me its very educational while I clean up my first Chinese lathe chuck. Thank you so much for showing me how to clean it. I am very interested with your self make grease. Can you kindly share what is it you use and where you got it? I am just started leaning. All your video are so inspiring to me and keep me going.Thank you.
You buy it for $69 after the retail mark up, shipping & ??. What did the manufacturer get for it? $35?? It had to have been made on automated equipment, very quickly. There are a lot of parts (20?) that are quite accurately made. Cast, forged, machined, heat treated, ground, hand assembled, packaged & shipped. An impressive feat.
I pretty much garantuee you that it is made all on manual machinery, each one setup for a special task. Just how we did mass production 40 years ago. Labor is cheaper than Cnc machinery ;)
Stefan Gotteswinter you kind of get into definitions of what counts as "manual equipment". On the one hand, there's equipment that is as general as possible, and everything is set up for each new job. On the other, there's equipment that's as general as possible, and is reprogrammed by computer. And then in the middle there's (potentially much simpler) tooling that is made to a very particular job and is "programmed" at least partially in the design phase. I wouldn't call the middle category either manual or automated - it's just tooling. And if it's made to do a particular job on multiple sizes of item, say, does it really matter whether there's a hand wheel or a motor that tells it whether to do 75 or 100 mm size? Or even changing over a template? Labor even in China is getting more and more expensive. The bigger factories are moving to as much automation as possible already.
Jasper Janssen: Exactly. The cheap Chinese manufacture era is about to end, as it did in the US and Europe. I am not complaining: Chinese workers deserve to be paid a fair wage. What worries me is precisely what you point out: automation is unbeatable in terms of costs, and soon we will find ourselves in a world where everything is automated and people cannot work. That will effectively end the market. Even traditional trades will eventually be replaced by intelligent machinery. What will be there for humans to do? Who will get paid to do what? How will billionaires keep their fortunes when there is no-one left to buy their stuff? Interesting times...
Agree with you completely. We are at the very start of the era of artificial intelligence being incorporated into machines that can replicate human movement and locomotion, as depicted here:czcams.com/video/knoOXBLFQ-s/video.html In 15 years time, the refined mechanical humanistic locomotion combined with high-level Artificial Intelligence will have human store workers and even office workers rendered as obsolete equipment by their employers. As you have correctly mentioned: "What will be there for humans to do? Who will get paid to do what? How will billionaires keep their fortunes when there is no-one left to buy their stuff?"
Hi I went through much the same thing with a chuck I recently bought. I was noot as elegant as you though. My jaw numbers are punch marks 1,2,3 ETC. I al;so found the adapter plate was slightly out of round. With my dal indicator I went through numerous rmounts on my lathe to fine the least off set, then more punch marks so I can remount the chuck in the same place. The 4" chuck is much better than the 3" that came with my 7x12 chinese lathe. I would like a surface grinder, after a milling machine. :
Even though you don't probably care too much about center-runout of the chuck, it would be very interesting to see you to meassure and tune this up for the chuck as well.
I've had quite a few Chinese "kit" tools over the years and only had a couple that were beyond a re-finish, definitely well worth the money and time spent, makes me wonder how much badge engineering goes on with some of the big brands stuff????
Saubere Sache, Danke Stefan. Dein Video und jenes von Keith Rucker "Truing up a 3-Jaw Chuck" haben mir geholfen meine bedenken für eine Chinesenmühle zu zerstreuen. Ich weiss zwar noch nicht ob es ne Vario oder ne geschaltete wird (letztere fänd ich geiler) aber es wird eine. Ich hatte grosse bedenken bezüglich Präzision, da ich Motoren und Maschinenteile machen möchte. Jedoch sehe ich das es möglich ist auch mit einfachsten Mitteln zu einem Ergebnis zu kommen. Der Schlüssel ist zu wissen das man Zeit investieren muss, was man aber bei einer alten Drehbank genauso muss - mit dem Unterschied das dort die Ersatzteile und Zusatztools einfach mal massiv mehr kosten würden. Wer keine 10-tausend Eurogulden auf der hohen Kante hat zum starten muss kreativ werden. Ich glaube auch das der Lerneffekt der daraus kommt auch zum Erfolg beitragen wird. Denn ein guter Handwerker kann sich seine Arbeitswerkzeuge selber bauen. Danke dafür das Du Dein wissen weitergibst und damit es anderen ermöglichst, etwas neues zu Lernen
A very educational video as usual! Actually I agree with one of your commenters that the Chinese (PRC, not Taiwan) could make precision equipment with the best of them -- but they don't. This is an economic decision; they make far more money off the cheap stuff. Even the cheap stuff is often well designed. Not always well executed. Someone once remarked that a Chinese tool must be treated as a kit of parts. But, as you have just shown us, with a bit of knowledge you can often make it into a really high-end tool.
I did the same thing with my 6", deburing was horrible they definitly need a lot of fit and finish but you can bring them up to a fair standard. Please throw in the inch conversions as most of us in the US are not familar with MM. Great job!
The key number is 25.4, which how many millimeters make an inch. There are some situations where things fall neatly into place. 19 mM. and 3/4 in. are so close that wrenches and sockets are interchangeable.
It still seems to provide value for the cost. I have a four jaw chuck that I once bought in a box of junk. The chuck was made in India. It was unusually bad.
My lathe had live tooling for a while...
Turned out it was just missing the earth connection and had some bad insulation.
Lol
Very few comments actually make me laugh. This is one of the few. 👍
lol
Part of me is laughing while the other is terrified!
Unearthed machines always give a great ’live' performance
00:57 lol "I bought this on purpose" . :D
Anybody else binge watching Stefan's videos despite the fact they've never worked in a machine shop?
Thanks for the cool videos, Stefan.
Great subject Stefan! Every home shop enthusiast with a lathe (and cheap chucks) can benefit from this tune up, bravo!
Installed an older South Bend model C in my workshop last week. A bare bones unit that needed cleaning and care, it came with a back plate but no chuck. So your instruction very useful indeed, as I continue to build the machine for general turning. Thanks for the post. M.
Thank you for the "inch" conversions as they give a point of reference to those of us not intimately familiar with divisions of millimeters as they compare!
@@jonWilk8156 oh no... 2 thou is 0.05mm, so 0.01 is just under half a thou
@@jonWilk8156 yeah 1mm is 40 thou roughly (39.37). I don't remember any of it I just calculate on my phone based off conversion factor 1inch = 25.4mm
@@jessehall8168 Same. 25.4, 2.54, etc. is easy enough to remember, but getting too fancy with memorized equivalents would just get me into trouble.
@@Sammus7t yeah agreed, the only equivalents I remember are the most common ones to me. Half inch, and eighth inch. Not quarter for some reason lol I always end up dividing half by two to figure it out.
Stefan: much thanks, respect, gratitude to you and your hard, keen work. People like you are exactly what keeps life flowing even in the cold/dark times. thanks again for great stuff like this!
The first time I ever used a lathe was in high school in 2005 and my shop teacher had fitted all the lathes with a safety switch that was located down a tube that could only be pressed when you inserted the chuck key into the tube it was a pretty ingenious way to make sure no kids accidentally turned on the machine with the chuck key in the chuck
Our apprenticeshop has the same thing on the mills. I am very much against it, because it teaches them, that the machine is harmless and nothing will happen if they leave the key in the chuck and turn the machine on..
Young man, I love your videos. Thank you for explaining common sense. Keep up the outstanding work!
Stefan, great video as usual. Love to see your precision, and steps you take to achieve. Thank you for sharing
Very interesting to hear you describe how each of the parts were (or may have been) manufactured. Also interesting to see the inner workings of a scroll wheel chuck!
I love the precision that you are able to achieve without the use of computerized equipment. Your dialog is common sense and at times filled with subtle humor. Continue your excellent presentations, please.
You sir are a real gentleman for kindly sharing your knowledge with us.
I just LOVE watching this kind of content and your videos are among the best I've ever watched.
Thank you and cheers from Brazil!!!
My Chinese Lathe came with 2 chucks (4 jaw standard + 3 jaw optional). They both look very simular to the type of your chuck. From new I dismanteled, deburred and greased them. I am very happy that they both run quite true. Always just a few hundreth of a milimeter.
Once I had a new hydraulic operated chuck from a well known German company. Taking it off for the anual mainenace shocked me. The bolts that fix it to the spindle seemed to have "sunk" into the material. I checked the hardeness by comparing the imprint of an hardened ball by hitting it with a hammer. Even ST-37 had less imprint. The manufacturers representative came just one day after the phone call and changed it to a new one.
To check a new chuck BEVORE mounting is not only a good idea when it comes from china. :D
moly is like roofing cement. it just spreads onto everything. especially expensive textiles.
Nicely done as always. I have one of these chucks for a project and will be doing the same.
This is a great video. Not everyone wants to wait forever, hoping they can save enough to buy expensive equipment, so they get what they can. Besides, a person can learn much more by taking their tools apart, polishing parts, replacing some parts and resembling them. You also get a much better feel for how smoothly your machines should function and how to dial them in to your personal taste. I've done this with a lathe and a mill with great results. Cheers
I've always gotten along pretty well with "cheap Chinese crap." You know in advance it has to be cleaned and de-burred so the work you do isn't done by Chinese labor and that lowers the price. And if the chuck or whatever needs some minor adjustment and re-fitting, that also lowers the price. So, yes, it can be a kit of assembled parts but when it's cleaned and fettled and tuned up, your new Chinese widget is pretty good enough for most work and since you've been all through the item you know what to do to compensate for error or deficiency - or not use it at all - for demanding work.
You pay the low price and do the final work yourself or you pay a higher price and get roughly the same result (leaving premium quality articles out for the moment). What I don't understand is the reason for the blistering contempt from some quarters. If you don't like the "kit of parts" approach, don't buy into it. Complaining you can't work with stuff other people can make serviceable is like admitting you can't make lemonade from lemons.
Thanks Stefan. You provide us with another valuable lesson. I'll refer the noobs to this video for info on cleaning, detailing, and inspection of three jaw chucks.
While people lament the end of US production as it was they forget or are unaware of the truth that until the rise of consumer grade throwaway products the standard procedure was always to tear down clean and lube the new tool or parts when they arrived. You didnt simply take your new thing out of the box and put it straight to work, not if you wanted it to work right anyway.
Chuckled when you pointed out the CE mark ie. China Export ! funny. This "rejuvenation" session was quite interesting; enjoyed.
Nice walkthrough of everything you should check and test on a chuck. that could be applied to any make, especially used and the infamous Chinese chucks. Thanks for sharing mate!
Buy something perfect, and that's all you get out of it along with probable good outcome, but nothing else. Buy something that may need upgrading or work and you gain knowledge along the way and knowledge is power. Great tutorial! Thanks for sharing with us :)
Great video Stephan, enjoyed the grinding as much as you did. Very inspiring.
Hello Stefan
Nice video.
U left us with lots to think about and how to improve cheap'o chuck accuracy
Thanks again for sharing
aRM
Love your depth gauge ste up. I have been trying to have the setup that Whom, uses on his lathe, when he does longitudinal cuts. My lathe has fairly small V guide, insufficient to clip a magnetic dial gauge too. I think I can sort of permanent fix the gauge, and then use an adjustable for, as you have done. 70 years old, and still learning. Thanks mate.
Totally going to go through this on mine! Thanks for the instruction.
Thanks for the video Stefan. I have a couple of these unused, and now know what to look for when I get to them.
For me a super interesting videoclip. As a woodworker mainly just recently got fascinated by metalworking the super tight tolerances are som impressive. I am trying to understand what can be carried over to the more or less ancient art of woodworking. Thank you for a very pedagogic clip!!
Interesting and informative Stefan. Another very nice video.
Bob
Great video Stefan. I've just bought a rotary indexer with a 5" chuck for the mill and they are still in the box and the first thing I'm going to do now is strip the chuck down and clean it out and lube it up. I would never have stripped one before, but now I know what's inside I'm going to give it ago.
Stefan not every one has so special tools .Well done!!!!!
Stefan, I am so jealous of your power tools in you shop! especially your shaper and pantogram!! NICE!!
Stefan, thanks for another amazingly instructive video. Wish you lived closer to check my chucks.
Watching this 6 years after production (!) and still very helpful. I noticed that you apparently didn't mark the jaws and chuck as you removed them. I thought it was important to make sure they each went back into their original slots -- because they're ground "true" in place at the factory.
If it can help, I have the same chuck type; the numbers are on the side of the jaws (in the side slot, you can see them at minute 6:20). Same goes for the chuck, but the numbers are inside the grooves, so not so handy to spot them (you can see it at minute 33:50).
Good stuff brother nice to see how they come apart
Pretty much the same as the Zither "premium" chuck I purchased from Arc Euro Trade Co Ltd. It had the jaw guidance slots ground non-planar, there was a bit of meat right next to the undercuts making it bind in the chuck body. AET/Zithers comment on this was that "Indians like it tighter", while the real reason is sloppy workmanship and improper grinding wheel dressing (or lack of such). I made a video of it.
Later I also found out that the jaws axial steps were ground with the same problem, the grinding wheel been worn from its edge and thus creating a non-flat surface. Basically the steps have a nice radii in them when looking from the side.
All in all, the price is low, but best to remember that you are actually purchasing a project and not a finished tool.
I have that same chuck , I need to get it out of the box and clean it well and see how good it is .. Thumbs up !
Great video. I'm going to disassemble and clean my chucks now. I wish I could acquire a small bench grinder like yours - everything here is much bigger.
I believe the results of this is that say that these low priced chucks can be made to work for us that just cannot afford an expensive brand. Some us just have to make do with what we can afford. I have 5 chucks of this type and now I know how to make them better.
Nice work. Good to know that CE quality can be made quite serviceable.
Super thorough. Thanks for the vid.
exellent demo Stefan keep em coming
I have that same surface grinder. This is the only other one like it I have seen. Very pretty machines
Less than 2 minutes into this one and I was already chuckling Stefan. I had a bit of grinding dust as well throughout my Taiwan built mill although not very much. So it's not just mainland China equipment you have to clean. Excellent tutorial on how to check, dis-assemble, clean, and then regrind where required. There no competition for somebody like Bison, but for what your using it for it should work well and the price was pretty fair considering the work that went into it. The Chinese are learning fast and they seem to be getting a lot better at producing more accurate tooling.
I think China has always been able to make precision things, it is the retailers who ask them to cut corners so they can be sold cheap. I believe there is a certain backlash against the ultra cheap crap, too many tools returned to retailers as faulty, so quality gets better, or better enough to reduce returns. Like an auction, things will find their own value or in this case find their necessary quality to keep the punters quiet. Or does that sound too cynical?
Not cynical at all imo. More logical than anything. China doesn't have a space program or long range nuclear tipped ballistic missile's built using inferior tools. Yes they import a lot of top quality CNC equipment, but they are completely capable of building top quality tooling as well. But not at rock bottom prices. So your point is more than valid. When it comes to competitive high quality goods cheaper labor costs have very little to do with final cost to build to that high standard. I've been burned trying to buy tooling too cheap and that's my fault since I should have known better. Today I still refuse to buy any off shore built cutting tools. My lathe is Chinese but I researched it as well as possible before buying. So far it's ok.
Nice job. I have found that some of the pricier Chinese products are made from marginally better materials, so the first thing to do before use is to re-engineer them. I've had 89 degree angle plates that needed squaring up; a band-saw that needed everything doing, and a pillar-drill that needed re-squaring and aligning.
Once these machine tools have been sorted, they seem to last quite well in the hobby workshop. My drill-press is now 35 years old, bandsaw 30, etc etc and still reasonably accurate, ie fit for purpose.
The helical ring and large gear assembly are obviously made using the powdered metal manufacturing method. You can tell this by the non machined surface of the gears and helical groove. That is what the debris is inside the Chuck. This is done to save manufacturing costs of course. You do get what you pay for so it would be unreasonable to expect perfection from such an inexpensive product. Powdered metal is used for many more American made products than people know. In fact if you have a Polaris quad I assure you that you have powdered metal parts in your transmission. I know because I designed and created the machine drawings from them.
Thank you for showing this. I don't know why I never thought to grind a chuck (or at least its jaws) that way, or to put a digital readout on my surface grinder. It seems quite obvious now... :)
Though cheap - surprising value really.
Nice detailed evaluation and tweaking.
Thanks for sharing. I have to inspect my own chuck that was equipped with the lathe.
Chucks aren't the only tools in what they leave the grit, they do it also in hydraulic jacks and more, got to do their cleaning before use or else the tools won't last... When it's cleaned you can apply a Bison or Rhom sticker on the surface... ;)
Cool! You bought a $69 block of cast iron, and they even carved it into a "chuck shaped object" for free!
Good old China.
Very nice work Stefan as usual!
Is using grease inside this chucka good idea? I mean grease is gathering all dirt.
@@kundeleczek1 Yes in moderation
Very informative vid thanks, I can see a strip down and clean of the 3 jaw on my Chinese mini lathe could be in order. One aspect I would have liked you to cover is run-out on the jaws. This is likely to be a major concern for lathe owners at this price point I would think.
one thing i can say is, if you want to learn, buy cheap chinese stuff! by the time you learn how to use it, you will also be able to build another one from scratch considering how many times you will have taken it apart. If you get a nice haas the thing just works to well, you never get the joy of ripping apart compound slide and resurfacing all its bushings.
Thank you Stefan
Thank you , so nice and perfect explanation
That was better than I expected..
It wouldn't last so well in heavy use, but for the odd job here and there on an otherwise collet lathe, it looks more accurate than the used quality chucks I've got on a Hardinge taper.
"Cheese grade" screws. Let's hope it's at least hard cheese ;)
Thanks for an excellent and very interesting video!
Another fantastic job by Stefan! I have a long way to go to get my shop "Stefanized"! ...thought you were maybe going to lower the recess to re-install the badge, but probably make your own.
My hero!
Regarding the grinding of the jaws: You could just chuck something in and then face them directly in the lathe right? Or would you advise against that because of the large interruption in the cut?
Phil Vandelay - Although it can be done or improved just as you describe.
The way he did is way more accurate. That part is treated alone, independently of other cumulative errors already present in the lathe (spindle, back plate, etc...) ;-)
The spiral is called a scroll in English. These really are "chuck kits"!!
Great stuff thank you for another high quality video. Regards, Matthew
Thanks for sharing this, I recently bought a Chinese lathe with a similar chuck fitted. I've not dismantled it yet as it seems ok, going to replace it with a 4 jaw in a few days so I'll take a look inside then. Probably keep it in case I need to turn hex stock, might mount it on a rotary table...
Don't throw out the three jaw! I did that when I got the lathe I have right now. I changed it to a four jaw and sold the three jaw. And I realy missed it pretty quickly :D
I would NEVER do that lol!
great job very detailed
Nice cleanup and improvement. I would be stuck the sizes after getting the dirt out. Keep on keeping on.
Great vid! I won't be able to grind mine, but you've certainly proven that it's worth opening them up and cleaning them! :)
bluehandsvideo - The crude reality is that any chuck from whatever manufacturer and price tag. Will be in worse condition than this one, regarding debris inside, in 6 months of regular workshop use.
As boring as it seems this should be part of "regular maintenance schedule" in any workshop. Just like sweeping the floor. ;-)
Excellent, thank you!!
Even european manufacturers recommend grinding the jaws on new lathe chucks. Danke "stefang" für deine gut gemachten Videos. Greetings from Spain (prisoner of covid-19)
I can tell by looking at that Chuck it is made in the factory that makes the grizzly Chucks for their mini lathes. There smaller series lathes spin it incredible rate I can't even remember the model number that I had before I threw it in the junk pile with all my might but the top end on that was something like 2500 rpm. It had a three quarter horse DC motor I still have that and a controller that I'm dying to do something with because the motors themselves are the best thing on the whole machine. And I think I might make a high-speed diamond wheel that has the controller for Speed control that will always be turned up all the way I have no doubt LOL but anyway it will handle that speed
Surprised all it needed was the jaws ground. You have gotten it to finished specs now from its semi finished condition. :-)
Very instructive. Thank you.
Great video - I learned a lot.
Now i feel guilty for not cleaning my expensive woodturning chucks.😢
😂 Great video buddy.
Also, now I know how a 3 jaw works. Thank you.
Great job Stefan. I also have a small chuck, it's a bison (polsh I think). I should clean and check it. I do not have a surface grinder though.
All the small things....Also called details...It is really what makes the difference
The Chinese are no idiots they know exactly what they do they calculate very good so what you pay is what you get but if a machinist is able to make precise parts why cant he transform a not so good made chuck into a good usable... Stefan proves it all the time
so, it seems that we have great value for money here! and I also needed a small chuck for the rotary table....
Very educational video, thanks. Did you check the runout? It would be interesting to see how far out it was for use on a lathe.
Very entertaining as well as informative, Stefan.
Although it is not relevant for your use, it would have been interesting to know how bad the runout was.
Keep up the great work.
Thanks Stefan, as usual a great video! Never thought to much about the parallelism of a chuck and its jaws. Always learn something from you :-)
I think you can easily grind the spiral mounting the part in some rotary axis (C axis in a CNC lathe) and then just cordinate it with a linear axis (X).
15:00 "Not sure how to grind this spiral" I think it is a constant radius spiral.The rotary table advance has a constant ratio with the mill X advance.... r (1- cosine a)...... one degree rotation on rotary table is followed by (R) (0.0001523) in X direction on mill table.
Wow.. this post of yours is almost 3 years old but to me its very educational while I clean up my first Chinese lathe chuck. Thank you so much for showing me how to clean it. I am very interested with your self make grease. Can you kindly share what is it you use and where you got it? I am just started leaning. All your video are so inspiring to me and keep me going.Thank you.
You buy it for $69 after the retail mark up, shipping & ??. What did the manufacturer get for it? $35?? It had to have been made on automated equipment, very quickly. There are a lot of parts (20?) that are quite accurately made. Cast, forged, machined, heat treated, ground, hand assembled, packaged & shipped. An impressive feat.
I pretty much garantuee you that it is made all on manual machinery, each one setup for a special task. Just how we did mass production 40 years ago. Labor is cheaper than Cnc machinery ;)
Stefan Gotteswinter you kind of get into definitions of what counts as "manual equipment". On the one hand, there's equipment that is as general as possible, and everything is set up for each new job. On the other, there's equipment that's as general as possible, and is reprogrammed by computer. And then in the middle there's (potentially much simpler) tooling that is made to a very particular job and is "programmed" at least partially in the design phase. I wouldn't call the middle category either manual or automated - it's just tooling. And if it's made to do a particular job on multiple sizes of item, say, does it really matter whether there's a hand wheel or a motor that tells it whether to do 75 or 100 mm size? Or even changing over a template?
Labor even in China is getting more and more expensive. The bigger factories are moving to as much automation as possible already.
Larry Schweitzer tchau
Jasper Janssen: Exactly. The cheap Chinese manufacture era is about to end, as it did in the US and Europe. I am not complaining: Chinese workers deserve to be paid a fair wage. What worries me is precisely what you point out: automation is unbeatable in terms of costs, and soon we will find ourselves in a world where everything is automated and people cannot work. That will effectively end the market. Even traditional trades will eventually be replaced by intelligent machinery. What will be there for humans to do? Who will get paid to do what? How will billionaires keep their fortunes when there is no-one left to buy their stuff?
Interesting times...
Agree with you completely. We are at the very start of the era of artificial intelligence being incorporated into machines that can replicate human movement and locomotion, as depicted here:czcams.com/video/knoOXBLFQ-s/video.html
In 15 years time, the refined mechanical humanistic locomotion combined with high-level Artificial Intelligence will have human store workers and even office workers rendered as obsolete equipment by their employers.
As you have correctly mentioned: "What will be there for humans to do? Who will get paid to do what? How will billionaires keep their fortunes when there is no-one left to buy their stuff?"
Hi
I went through much the same thing with a chuck I recently bought.
I was noot as elegant as you though.
My jaw numbers are punch marks 1,2,3 ETC.
I al;so found the adapter plate was slightly out of round.
With my dal indicator I went through numerous rmounts on my lathe to fine the least off set, then more punch marks so I can remount the chuck in the same place.
The 4" chuck is much better than the 3" that came with my 7x12 chinese lathe.
I would like a surface grinder, after a milling machine. :
I'm so jealous of your little surface grinder. I've been looking for one of those things forever
Even though you don't probably care too much about center-runout of the chuck, it would be very interesting to see you to meassure and tune this up for the chuck as well.
I love that you're familiar enough with American English to even throw in some Spanglish at the beginning there with "El Cheapo". :)
I learned that from...the simpsons :D
Stefan Gotteswinter i cant begin to express my appreciation of your post or
Cory Buckles - Yes, and appears he knows the difference between dollars and bucks. I'd bet not one or two in a hundred Americans know that difference.
Cory Buckles hi
I don't know the difference! I've always assumed that "a hundred bucks" was akin to "a hundred quid" in British English. What IS the difference?
I've had quite a few Chinese "kit" tools over the years and only had a couple that were beyond a re-finish, definitely well worth the money and time spent, makes me wonder how much badge engineering goes on with some of the big brands stuff????
Saubere Sache, Danke Stefan. Dein Video und jenes von Keith Rucker "Truing up a 3-Jaw Chuck" haben mir geholfen meine bedenken für eine Chinesenmühle zu zerstreuen. Ich weiss zwar noch nicht ob es ne Vario oder ne geschaltete wird (letztere fänd ich geiler) aber es wird eine. Ich hatte grosse bedenken bezüglich Präzision, da ich Motoren und Maschinenteile machen möchte. Jedoch sehe ich das es möglich ist auch mit einfachsten Mitteln zu einem Ergebnis zu kommen. Der Schlüssel ist zu wissen das man Zeit investieren muss, was man aber bei einer alten Drehbank genauso muss - mit dem Unterschied das dort die Ersatzteile und Zusatztools einfach mal massiv mehr kosten würden.
Wer keine 10-tausend Eurogulden auf der hohen Kante hat zum starten muss kreativ werden. Ich glaube auch das der Lerneffekt der daraus kommt auch zum Erfolg beitragen wird. Denn ein guter Handwerker kann sich seine Arbeitswerkzeuge selber bauen.
Danke dafür das Du Dein wissen weitergibst und damit es anderen ermöglichst, etwas neues zu Lernen
Very Very helpful, thanks . . .
well that came up pretty ok. wonder if they all have jaws that fit that well. great video!
A very educational video as usual! Actually I agree with one of your commenters that the Chinese (PRC, not Taiwan) could make precision equipment with the best of them -- but they don't. This is an economic decision; they make far more money off the cheap stuff. Even the cheap stuff is often well designed. Not always well executed. Someone once remarked that a Chinese tool must be treated as a kit of parts. But, as you have just shown us, with a bit of knowledge you can often make it into a really high-end tool.
Thanks for the video great work as always. Just an observation did you engrave the jaws with numbers? could not see it in the video.
Have a day
Nice.. I liked the initial skepticism aND CLEAN UP, but would not have taken off the rpm marking or the 'made in China'..
just watched a Haas demo lathe live tooling..... amazing
I did the same thing with my 6", deburing was horrible they definitly need a lot of fit and finish but you can bring them up to a fair standard. Please throw in the inch conversions as most of us in the US are not familar with MM. Great job!
The key number is 25.4, which how many millimeters make an inch. There are some situations where things fall neatly into place. 19 mM. and 3/4 in. are so close that wrenches and sockets are interchangeable.
Loved that video
Thank you
It still seems to provide value for the cost. I have a four jaw chuck that I once bought in a box of junk. The chuck was made in India. It was unusually bad.