Wet wood and rusty jaws

[Greg McClurg]

I normally turn dry wood, but have some wet wood that I just started turning. I turned the outside of a hollow form, but couldn't get to hollowing until the next day. I left it on the lathe, but covered the wood up to the jaws with plastic to keep it wet. When i finished hollowing and removed the turning from my chuck I noticed that my jaws and screws had some rust on them. Is there a way to prevent this, or do you just live with it?

Thanks,
Greg

[Brice Rogers]

I've had the same thing happen. It seems the worst on oak and leaves a nasty stain on the wood.

Since then I've sometimes wrapped some stretch wrap plastic in the jaws. It also covers the screws. Seems to work. But the best thing with wet wood is to turn it in one session and get it off of the chuck. Rough turning goes very quickly.

[Mick Fagan]

I've learnt to live with it, more or less.

I turn a reasonable amount of wet wood, doing some right now. One thing I found out with a large blank of Oak that was on the lathe for three days, the screws I used started to fail, with two of them completely failing. By failing I mean that the sap chemicals were attacking and voraciously eating the screws.

From then on, I've been using treated pine screws for holding wet wood that is going to be on longer than half a day. Haven't had any issues since and I have had one Spotted Gum 400mm (16') heavy and as wet as, blank on for two days. With no noticeable ingress into the screws.

The green screw is a treated for pine screw, which haven't shown any problems with any kind of wet wood. Images are L to R, Spotted gum, about 30 minutes after felling, big oak blank on its second day on the lathe and a standard 80mm screw alongside a 76mm treated pine screw; which are what I now use.

As for rust, my Vicmarc jaws have some interesting surface rust surfaces, but they seem to clean off very quickly and lets just say that the black colour, has lost its lustre; big time.

Mick.



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[Greg McClurg]

Thanks for the information.

[Alex Zeller]

I use stainless screws for both the jaws and the face plate. I use a pilot hole/ cordless drill to drive the screws in the face plate (#3 Phillips). After a few dozen uses I replace the screws as the heads start to get worn making hard to screw them in. Stainless seams to snap easier than steel screws but by drilling a pilot hole and not over tightening I've never had a problem. As for the jaw screws the only part that is a little bit of a problem is that if you drop one and can't spot it you can't use a magnet to find it. But I have a bag of 100 of both lengths my Vicmarc uses so I have a lifetime supply.

[robert baccus]

Epoxy coated deck crews are my standard here--no rust and heat treated for strength,