Longworth Chuck

[Joe Watson]

Anyone here with any experience with making/using a longworth chuck ?
Moving the pins on my cole is a pain (dont have a vacuum and no plans on one in the near future ether) and i just stumbled across "the Longworth" and thought i would ask.

Any thoughts or experiences ?


-

[Rick Markham]

I've never used one, I did look at them. I just ended up making a donut chuck, cheaper and works with nearly any shape of form you can fit in it.

[Steve Kennedy]

Rick, Is there a tutorial, picture, thread on donut chucks? I need to make one. Thanks

[Michelle Rich]

yes, I have experience with LC..I like them. I have a commercial one. I like it for very gentle finish work. It does not have the gripping power of say a oneway cole jaws. (which I also have) Faster to get the bowl in & out is it's claim. there is a bolt head in the center that sticks up..so one cannot put a flat surfaced item in there, but any bowl, or something that has a hollow will be ok.

[Steve Trauthwein]

I have a post from February of '08 that shows some pictures of the one I made. My experience is a little different then Michelle's. Mine holds well and can accomodate a large range of sizes. I still find myself using the tailstock to turn the bottom 90% of the time.

Not really difficult to make if you take your time and do good layout. The plans were in a Woodturning Magazine.

Regards, Steve

[Bill Bulloch]

I got the 16" Longworth Chuck at the Woodworking Show last year. It works great for reversing bowls and platters and is easier to setup than the Cole Jaw, but like Michelle said the centerbolt head can get in the way on some platters. Another problem I have found with it is that the buttons are to long for centering some segmented pieces. The buttons (about 1 1/2" long) stick out farther than the ring you are trying to center and will get in the way and prevent you from centering a small ring to a larger one -- like when gluing the downhill side of vessel.

I was concerned about this at the time of purphase, but was assured by Ron Brown (he sold them to me) that they were coming out with a shorter button for segmenters in the next few months. That was a year ago and still no shorter buttons, so I guess that was just sales hype. Anyway, I made some shorter ones by cutting down some of those synthetic wine stoppers.

[Justin Stephen]

I just ordered one of these finally after seeing them at the AAW Symposium and being smitten with the idea of not having to change jaws to use it. Now, without having used one yet, it does seem like you could just use it with conjunction with something like the full point cone on my Oneway live center (or comparable) and cut to all but the very middle of the bottom and then slow things down and remove the tailstock for the very middle, sanding and finishing. Or, alternatively, just throw a few pieces of duct tape on as well for extra stability, like many folks do with a jam chuck.

[Paul Kennedy]

I have one of the Longworth chucks. I am very happy with mine. I find it holds better than my Cole chuck, plus I don't have to change jaws. When I use mine, I bring the rubber post into contact with the bowl. Then by using an Allen wrench and the wing nut on the backside, I tighten the rubber post. This compresses the rubber, thus increasing the circumance. This really locks the bowl in place and makes finishing the bowl bottom much easier for me.

[Will Winder]

I've been wanting to make this longworth chuck for a while: http:// woodcentral.com/cgi-bin/readarticle.pl?dir=turning&file=articles_485.shtml

[Thom Sturgill]

I have been looking at these for awhile. I had bad experience with cole jaws not gripping well on my 1220 with PSI chucks when I was starting out a few years ago, which led me to build a vacuum chuck.

My late father and brothers were luthiers and my brothers are wanting to re-open the shop which was closed after the remnants of Hugo damaged the roof. They have a number of banjo rims that need to be trued up and they asked for my help as dad always did that and neither has used a lathe much. I thought the longworth might grip the inside of the hoop (about 3" front to back) and let me true up the faces and cut a cove for the brass ring that supports the head. The rings are 11 1/2" OD so should just fit my 1220 which I can take with me on the next trip. I would grip from the inside of the hoop.

I know this is not a normal usage, so Michelle and others more familiar - would this work OK? Safely? No tailstock and vertical sides give me pause.

Sorry if this is a hijack, but the answer might be meaningful to the OP as well if he thinks about gripping a straight sided piece.

[John Spitters]

I've built one and have used it a few times and it does work well, however I found that if you have a larger bowl ( I made mine so I could utilize the full swing of my lathe which is 20") I can mount a bowl as large as 18" on my longworth. Sometimes the outer walls of the bowl will have moved and it is no longer truely round, this now becomes a problem for this type of chuck.
So what I have done is simply mount a large MDF disk on a face plate, for each bowl that I wish to reverse mount I will cut in a groove to the size of the bowl rim and bring up the tailstock for support, and finish the bottom as you normally would with the use of the tailstock support. With this setup you have the option of shifting the position of the bowl somewhat to get it to run true. Of course I also have a vacumm chuck, and also use other means of jamb chucking and no longer use the longworth. I got the plans for mine from the Wood Central archives.

John

[Rick Markham]

Steven, This is pretty much how I made my donut chuck http://azwoodturners.org/DoughnutChuck.pdf

[Steve Kennedy]

Thanks Rick. Looks like i got some work to do:)

[Dan Henry]

I have made 2 chucks and I use them mostly for gluing up segment rings on my lathe. I have live center that has the threads on it and have an adapter that fits the tail stock. Put the Long worth chuck on the tail-stock and makes the alignment very easy.I use some nylon spacers Rather than the rubber buttons. They are not difficult to make but use bolts so the smooth shake is in the groves as screws with threads will not move very easy.I use 3/4 plywood for the base that is bolted to a face plate and 3/8 on the face. A worth project for and turning shop. Just Goggle for long worth chuck plans, there are several.

Dan

[Jeff Welch]

Do not make them out of Corian! I had some plain white corian, I figured would work good. Should adjust easily.

First time I used mine I had a catch! The whole thing just exploded!

Lesson learned!

Jeff

[dan carter]

Yes, I use one I made sometimes. I use a donut chuck with several different sizes more often. If I had only one, I would use the donut chuck. When I use the longworth, I most often tape the product to chuck so it does not move and/or dislodge from the chuck.

[Joe Watson]

Been doing alittle digging around and came across a thread where a person used a set of cole jaws in combination to a donut chuck - seams like a neat idea.
I like the longworth idea, being its gotta be easier/faster then moving the cole "pegs" and it looks like it would work good for facing/cleaning ring segments - when time gets free, im pretty sure im gonna give a longworth - donut chuck a shot. I figure worse case i would lose an 1" of dia. of my 12" swing - i can deal with a 11" bowl or platter if thats the case.

Thanks everyone for your post.

_

[Eric Gourieux]

Joe,I made mine and it works well. The LC adjusts easily to the size of your piece, but I usually use use the tail stock for support. I could find the plans I used if you want to take a look. All you need is a drill and a router.

[Grant Wilkinson]

I've made two of them, one for use on my Jet Mini and one big one for my Vega. They work very well, but I would suggest putting more than 4 holders on them. The plan that I started with only called for 4 holders. I found that it really wasn't enough. I launched a few bowls. On my small one, I now have 6 and on my big one, I have 8. I haven't lost a bowl since I increased from 4.

FWIW, I made 2 donut chucks too. The beauty of them is that it is pretty much impossible to lose the bowl. The downside over the LW is that you cannot get at the sides.

[Joe Watson]

Thanks for the offer, E.Gourieux; had plans on following this (what do you think ?):
http://www.woodworkersguide.com/2010/10/17/how-to-make-a-longworth-chuck/
(http://www.woodworkersguide.com/2010/10/17/how-to-make-a-longworth-chuck/)Has 8 "peg holders" which i liked right off the bat and how the author off-set the inner slots to try and keep material for more face-plate support sounds like a good idea. Only thing which i will add/change/try is waxing the bolts and slots (was gonna try a burned up sanding drum for a dermal at slow speed).

As of now, im thinking about making the plate which will be touching the 'turned piece' about 1.5" dia smaller then the back plate, then drill a few holes in that back plate to bolt a "donut plate" to... just an idea for now. Only bad thing i can think of is that this will limit the dia of the turned piece to around 10" if clamped ID and 9.5" if clamped o.d..


... The downside over the LW is that you cannot get at the sides...
Thanks for posting that, never popped into my head. For the most part i would have all that done (detail, etc.) before flipping, but for them times when the last min thought springs in it would be nice to have that open space.

_

[robert baccus]

Being lazy and cheap i think you guys are working entirely too hard. i use a 3/8"ID black pipe 10" long with a glued on 3" wasteblock turned true padded with tape ect. this will chuck up on the inside jaws of most chucks. reverse your piece and bring up the tailstock to the bottom. i use a modified oneway cone reshaped to a flat 1/4" tip. cut and finish the bottom leaving a 1/4" tit which is easily hand finished. obtain a 16" pipe and add a smaller wood tip and you have a vase "reverser". other embellishment are available.-----------old forester

[Eric Gourieux]

Joe,
Those plans are very similar to the plans that I followed. Looks like a good one.

[Joe Watson]

Being lazy and cheap i think you guys are working entirely too hard. i use a 3/8"ID black pipe 10" long with a glued on 3" wasteblock turned true padded with tape ect. this will chuck up on the inside jaws of most chucks. reverse your piece and bring up the tailstock to the bottom. i use a modified oneway cone reshaped to a flat 1/4" tip. cut and finish the bottom leaving a 1/4" tit which is easily hand finished. obtain a 16" pipe and add a smaller wood tip and you have a vase "reverser". other embellishment are available.-----------old forester
Seen someone do that on youtube and it does seam like a smooth way of cleaning the bottom of a HF... for me, i would like to make something which i can also use for segmented rings as well.... only time will tell :)
Thanks for the input, old forester.

_