Bikerdad
Member
I'm drilling on the lathe these days, using a Vicmarc chuck with 4 long jaws. What is the benefit of using pen jaws over the normal 4 jaws?
Pen Blank Chuck / Jaws.. what's the benefit?
- Thread starter Bikerdad
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Dieseldoc
Member
Maintain better alignment and support of blank.
JohnU
Member
The pen jaws are usually just 2 sides with a deeper cut on the inside of the jaws to hold the blank better and by opposite sides which is great when the blank is not perfectly square.
do they make pen jaws that open larger? I've found that some bottle stopper blanks require me to put my regular jaws on the chuck
JohnU
Member
I'm not sure about that. I have a couple chucks and haven't found a need for them to be bigger… yet. With stoppers I use my threaded stopper mandrel that threads onto the threaded inserts.
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What I've found with the pen jaws is that it "squares" my blank to the tail stock much better that the 4 jaw chucks. Since getting the pen jaws I have had zero blanks drilled off center.
Bikerdad
Member
Yes, sort of. Vicmarc makes pen jaws for their VM120 / VM150 chucks, i.e. the big chucks designed for full sized lathes. The chuck has more diameter, so the jaws should open up wider. I don't know if anybody else makes pen jaws for a full sized chuck.
Sorry, I wasn't very specific. I have a threaded mandrel that I use while turning,
I use my chuck to drill the blanks to install a threaded insert, sometimes my pen jaws don't open up large enough for a blank and I have to put my regular jaws on to drill.
JohnU
Member
Ok, I should have understood that. Yes, I've had that issue and had to trim it on the band saw to fit.
my belt sander may or may not have come into play to shave corners down....