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♪♫ Happy Easter to Me! ♫♪ - new chuck

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AdeV:
All of my chucks are, like the lathe (and me!) old and worn out.... so it's time to buy a shiny new one....

Having watched yet another of Adam Booth's (Abom77) videos, where he once again raved about his 6-jaw chuck, I figured - yep, I want a 6-jaw! The Edgwick, being of a decent size, will easily carry a 10-12" chuck. My bank account, on the other hand, wheezingly and begrudgingly only coughed up enough to buy a Chinese 10"... And today, after a week in quarantine in Shanghai, it's arrived!

Behold, the magnificence...

01 - Das Box
02 - Silly spring-loaded chuck key. "Un"fortunately, the spring fell off as I was cleaning off the transport oil. For shame. No external jaws for these chucks, unfortunately.
03 - Tada!

So, first impressions out of the box: By heck it's stiff! Obviously designed to wear in with use, although a total absence of grease (just some thin oil) probably isn't helping much. On the bright side, there seems to be almost no side wobble in the jaws (unlike reviews of the 100mm version of the same chuck I've seen on 'tube), just a tiny amount of back-and-forth play, which is plenty acceptable. Of course, the thing about having no side wobble is... they're a tight fit! Hopefully some grease will ease things up a touch.

Brass_Machine:
That's nice!

AdeV:
So, in the best traditions of buying a Chinese chuck, the first job is to disassemble it!  :ddb:

I looked for jaw numbers, but couldn't see any... however, when jaw no. 6 popped out, it was clearly stamped inside the "T" slot section. The number was also stamped on the chuck body, in the base of the slot where the jaw rides. Not terribly visible, but plenty good enough for assembly/disassembly purposes.

Having extricated the jaws (04), "flip" the chuck over (cue much "old man grunting") and remove the backplate (05). It all looks OK in there; the teeth on the pinions seem to be nicely rounded, and there's minimal burring on the scroll plate teeth. Definitely no grease though.

Removing the scroll was "challenging" - I ended up needing a piece of sacrificial aluminium bar & a hammer to tap it free. Anyway, it's now in its component parts (06). The scroll looks OK, not too much of a burr on the edges (07). I'll give the corners a wipe over with a stone anyway, just to see if I can smooth them off at all. Inside the body (08) there's a fair bit of dirt, and the oil feels a little gritty, so I'll give all that a good clean up; re-assemble with some grease inside, and then I need to make a backplate!

Fortunately, being pre-warned by my credit card that there was an expensive chuck on the way, I snagged a piece of cast iron from our local metal merchant (who, surprisingly, is still open for business). Unfortunately I mis-heard him, and what I thought would be a most acceptable 90mm piece of 290mm CI, turned out to be 19mm!!! 3/4". Barely enough for a backplate, really... but it's what I've got, so it'll have to do.

09 - just enough cast iron
10 - If I use my Mircona face grooving tools, I should be left with a CI ring  :ddb: I wonder if it'll be big enough to help rebuild Andrew's manhole cover?  :lol:

AdeV:
Thanks Eric! I was a bit concerned the quality would be iffy - having watched a couple of videos on YT of similar San Ou chucks - but it would seem that the bigger ones (if mine is representative) are better made... at least, I hope so. I'm hoping I don't have to grind the jaws true, like one person did.

I found mine on Alibaba for the ridiculously cheap price of US$136 (about UK£110). Postage more than doubled that, adding US$166.63 (£134.35), for a total price of $302.63 (£244.35). I may yet end up with VAT and import duty to pay (Fedex, uniquely as far as I know, deliver first & demand the tax later), which will add another ~20% to that price. However, I can reclaim that, so I tend not to include it in my thinking.

Brass_Machine:
From the pictures, it looks to be decent quality... Not sure about the tolerances? Can't measure on the screen... lol.

But, it looks better than some of the Chinese chucks I have had... Insides looked like they were made with playdoh!

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