Another Chuck Question...

[Joe Tedesco]

I must have been a good boy this year because Santa just emailed me the tracking number for my new PM 3520. I am kind of new to turning, I had an old Craftsman lathe that I used to play around with, but nothing serious. I am interested in doing some bowl turning. In addition, I build and sell birdhouses and go through lots of spindles and finials, so I would like to attempt to produce some custom variations. I will need and chuck and have been researching the various models. It sounds like the Oneway Talon and Subernova2 are both good chucks but I am still unsure which one to get. They say the Talon's serrated jaws have excellent holding power, but won't they dig into the wood leaving marks? And how does that effect re-chucking? With the current sales, there is not a huge price difference. Any late breaking thoughts as to which one is the better option?

Thanks
-Joe

P.S. - I apologize in advance for numerous stupid questions I will probably be asking in the near future.

[Ryan Baker]

Congratulations on one heck of a Christmas toy!

Since you specifically are talking about finials for birdhouses and such -- i.e. small pieces -- I'm going to suggest that you might steer away from the SN2, at least until the rumored new jaw sets become available. I have found that a compression grip on small parts (less than 1.5") is the big hole in the Nova jaw line. The pin jaws are essentially useless in compression mode, and I don't believe the 1" bowl jaws are any better. Hopefully something new is coming for that.

The Talon would be a good choice with the #1 jaws. I have been using a Stronghold with #1 jaws for small work lately. (Seems dumb to use a big chuck for smal work, but it actually works very well.)

The Oneway (profiled) jaws will mark the wood -- no avoiding that with those jaws. They will not rechuck a piece well either. That said, the same is true of Nova or Vicmarc (or Oneway) dovetail jaws too unless the part is sized just exactly right. I think that if you are grabbing the piece by an area that will be left in the finished piece, you probably need to rethink your process. Neither a profile-jaw-grabbed straight tenon nor a dovetailed tenon (or recess for that matter) is something I would want on a finished finial. A better idea would be to chuck up a waste block and use that to form a jamb chuck for the finial blank.

As for remounting, that is something that I never do except on very rare occasion. If you really need to remount and have the part run true, you would be better to look into Vicmarc chucks, or just mounting to a glue block (or jamb chuck block) mounted on a faceplate. Maybe get a Beall spindle tap and just make jamb chucks that thread directly on your spindle.

Good luck with it.

[Steve Schlumpf]

Joe - Welcome to the Vortex! Looking forward to seeing photos of your new lathe!

I have a Talon chuck and I think it is great! Most of my turnings I have to rechuck and do not have a problem! Real simple way - I use a fine tip pen and mark the wood between the #1 & #4 jaws. When turning finials - just make sure the blank is longer than what you need when you start!

Have fun!

[Dave Rudy]

Congratulations Joe. Welcome to the Mustard world.

Others have posted on setting up the 3520 -- you might want to search and find some of the threads. It is extremely hard to do alone. It is much easier with an engine hoist and/or a hydraulic table, both of which can be got from Harbor Freight.

Now that you have an exceptional lathe, I think it calls for exceptional chucks. I know that many have different opinions, but for me there is only one choice -- Vicmarc.

IMHO dovetailed jaws are the best -- that reduces the choices to Vicmarc and Nova. Nova is light-duty by comparison. Vicmarc is super well-machined and well-engineered. And it is more expensive.

But if you invest in top-quality chucks, they will handle everything from small spindles to 20" bowls and platters and you will never have to trade "up", with all the jaws etc.

In any case, I'm sure you will love the PM as much as I love mine -- a great lathe.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Welcome Joe to SMC and congrats on the new lathe. I will have to say a +1 for the Vic chuck.

[Dan Forman]

I have both, and would go with the Talon. It has less runout than my Supernova 2, and I much prefer the serrated, non dovetailed jaws for most things. The #1 jaw set for the Talon will do well for holding small parts, none of the other chucks mentioned will do that as well. If you really need dovetail jaws, they are available for the Talon, but I think you will probably like the serrated jaws once you use them. I have a couple of Vic's too, which are superb, but first choice are usually the Oneways, simply because of the jaws.

Dan

[Alan Trout]

Nova, Oneway, Vicmarc are all good quality chucks and will not be sorry with any of them. I happen to own Nova chucks and find them more than adequate for my needs and an excellent value. I have used all of the chucks listed and they all have performed well.

I personally like dovetail jaws because they re-chuck and hold very well. I don't really care about the marring because I use mostly spigots that get turned off later so that is a mute point. But I always size my spigots for correct size for best grip with a particular set of jaws.

I personally feel that the Nova line of chucks are a very good value especially with the current woodcraft sale. With the proper jaws the SN2 is good to right at 30". Now if I was turning over 20" on a daily basis I would get the big Vic VM120 as it is designed to handle those kind of loads on a regular basis.

Another consideration, for me at least was availability of spares and accessory jaws. My local Woodcraft keeps the entire line of jaws and spares for the Nova chucks. While they keep Oneway chucks they don't have a good selection of accessories for them. For me Vicmarc chucks are order only items. With the Nova chucks if I need something they are only 5 minutes away.

I have a G3 made in New Zealand and my SN2 was made in China at their new factory. The quality of both chucks are excellent and the SN2 is at about .001 runout and the G3 is a little over that. For me that is plenty good for wood.

With the money savings on the Nova you can get at least 2 sets of additional jaws and/or other tooling that is needed.

The new jaws that are coming out are Nova Mini Step Jaws, Nova Mini Spigot Jaws, 20mm Jaws, 70mm Jaws These should be available in January.

Good Luck

Alan

[Bill Blasic]

Alan,
I have the new four jaw set ordered from Woodcraft and when I was there last Saturday the due date that they were supposed to be there was December 8th (yesterday). They will be on sale in the January flyer. I too have checked the run out on my Nova chucks and like yourself have found no problem with either origin of manufacture. Oh by the way I picked up #13 Saturday as I could not pass up $69 for the Precision Midi.:)
Bill

[Kyle Iwamoto]

Just to add my 2 cents, Woodcraft has the Supernova 2 also on sale for 139 bucks, free shipping. I just got one. You can also get, as Bill mentioned, the Midi for cheap too. For the PM, the Midi would be a little small. But it's a very compact chuck, may be good for turning the small stuff. I like it because of the compactness, and since I have a Mini, bed length is a premium.

If in case you didn't know, all the Nova jaws fit all chucks except for the Titan. That was a strong selling point for me, as I now have 3 Novas.

Oh, BTW, I have lathe envy...... Someday I want Santa to send me one too..... Maybe after my daughter gets out of college.

[Joe Tedesco]

Thanks for all the replies and info. It sounds like either would be a good choice. I am reading lots of good info about the Talon, I might give that one a shot.

-Joe