Different Idea for a doughnut chuck

[Andrew Derhammer]

I know one of the down falls of a doughnut chuck is that it can not handle natural edge bowls, well it's been on my mind and i don't know if this has been done before. If there was a rod turned in the center of the plate on the headstock side of the chuck, oh say maybe 2.5", in such a way that the rod would contact the bottom of the bowl, i think this would alleviate the problem of not being able to use a doughnut chuck for natural edges. What's your thoughts on this?

[Dave Halter]

Andrew,
I new to bowl turning, having only turned 3 that are now dry and ready to finish. One of them is a natural edge bowl and I've been contemplating the same thing. One thought I had was to cut a tennis ball in half and mount it to the end of the rod with the cut side facing the bowl. This would provide a soft support so as to not damage the bowls interior. I haven't tried it yet because I haven't even built the donut chuck.

Dave

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Andrew....give it try and report back to us how it works.


I use a donut chuck. I take a couple of pieces of 2" foam insulation and tape them together using double-sided tape. Then I use the same tape and tape them to the base of the donut chuck and turn the foam to a cone. I used enough pieces of foam so that the inner bottom of the NE ends up riding on the foam when captured by the other piece of the donut chuck.

[Bernie Weishapl]

Andrew I use a piece of PVC when chucking up a NE in a donut chuck. I have several different sizes of PVC with a computer mouse pad glued onto the end that fits in the bowl. These have worked pretty slick for me.

[Steve Campbell]

Andrew I used to use a donut chuck a lot. I went into the toy department at Walmart and bought a bunch of small inflatable balls of all sizes. I just find one that fits the bowl close and just add air or let air out until the edges just tough the chuck. It seems to work fairly well.
I now use just a jam chuck with the tailstock.

Steve

[David Drickhamer]

I like the idea of the inflatable balls, I'll have to try that.

As Bernie says PVC does work well as long as you pad the end that comes in contact with the bowl. I've used a parting tool to cut a groove in the base of the chuck to fit different sizes PVC to make sure it's centered.

I've even used a roll of duct tape in place of the PVC.

Dave

[Allen Neighbors]

Andrew, it'll work. I have a several sizes of cones that have a 3/8" hole drilled through the center. The cones all have tenons that fit into my chuck and all have set screw (bolts) that are perpendicular to the center hole. I put a 3/8 rod in the center hole. The rod has leather taped to the end for padding.
The padded end goes against the bottom of a hollowform, and when the top just contacts the cone, the set screw is tightened.
You could do the same thing for natural edged bowls, but I would try making different rounded cones of soft wood, like Aspen or Cottonwood. You could make a hole in each, that would fit over the rod you suggested, then use the donut. If they were long enough cones, they would keep the natural edge off the back of the jam chuck.
Tell us what you decide.