"how to hold"

[Dennis Taylor]

i am making some turkey pot calls, the pot isn't an issue, but the striker is. I am using stock in a spindle turning mode, but want to hollow out the end. I do have a piece of 5/16 dowel in this upper part of the striker, but don't want to mar it with drill chuck. Any info? Dennis

[Roger Chandler]

i am making some turkey pot calls, the pot isn't an issue, but the striker is. I am using stock in a spindle turning mode, but want to hollow out the end. I do have a piece of 5/16 dowel in this upper part of the striker, but don't want to mar it with drill chuck. Any info? Dennis


Get a collet chuck if you are going to do a number of these............that will give you many sizes of collets to hold small spindles, etc. I got this one from WoodCraft........http://www.woodcraft.com/Images/products/146110_400.jpg

[Tim Rinehart]

Dennis, you can make a 'wooden collet' by fabricating a small wooden disc maybe 1/2" thick, just bigger in diameter than the smallest opening of your chuck. Drill a 5/16" hole in it, then take to your bandsaw (or other saw) and cut a slit from outside to inner hole. When you insert your 5/16" striker, you can then clamp down on it with the wooden collet inside your chuck.

[Marvin Hasenak]

It is easier to make the handle for the dowel before inserting the dowel. First I put the handle blank in a 4 jaw chuck, and drill out the inside if I want a hollow handle. Without removing the blank I drill on through for the 5/16" dowel. Leaves me a blank with a 1/2" hollow handle and a 5/16" hole for my dowel. Then I use a 1/2" steel rod in a drill chuck in the headstock to "jam" chuck the end of the blank using a 1 short piece of 5/16" dowel on the opposite end on the tailstock end. Turn and sand, when finished, the 1/2 rod slides out, the dowel end will stick sometimes. If the short piece of dowel sticks I can usually know it out with a small rod.

[James Combs]

+1 on what Roger said. The only thing I would add is to go with and industry standard chuck set such as ER32 chuck and collet. An example would the this one (http://www.pennstateind.com/store/LCDOWEL.html) from PSI. It uses industry standard collets that can be purchased from almost any industrial supplier including fleabay. No offense to Roger but I believe the one form Woodcraft is proprietary to them and I don't think there are any other collets around that will fit it and I am not sure but I think the ones that come with it are all there is. I got a similar one with my Grizzly metal lathe. Eventually I purchased a ER32 system and was able to expand it to 18 different collets. It makes it easy to replacing a bad collet also.