Most practical method to "pretty up" Buck 5 inch 3 jaw chuck ?

Milacron · Sep 23, 2011

If you had a Buck adjust tru 5 inch chuck that worked fine but had alot of shallow dings on front and side, but you wanted it to look nice...maybe not quite brand new nice, but almost....would you remove the jaws and try and turn it on the lathe... or does it really need grinding on cylindrical grinder ? (which I don't have at the moment) In this case, Hardinge mount. The interupted cuts, esp on the front, might be hell on carbide....

I guess the open jaw slots should be stuffed with something to keep swarf out.

flathead4 · Sep 23, 2011

I have a 4-jaw Buck that came to me a nice brown patina and some light dings on the face. I removed the jaws and polished it on the lathe with a green scotch-brite pad. It didn't remove the dings as such but they might be a little less noticable with everything shined up.

Tom

Milacron · Sep 23, 2011

flathead4 said:
I have a 4-jaw Buck that came to me a nice brown patina and some light dings on the face. I removed the jaws and polished it on the lathe with a green scotch-brite pad. It didn't remove the dings as such but they might be a little less noticable with everything shined up.

I hear ya but in this case I want to go beyond scotch brite and actually remove some metal.

autofrite · Sep 23, 2011

i had thought about this myself,what about a flapwheel in a die grinder mounted to the toolpost?
i have seen various setups like this,i guess it all depends how serious a person wants to get.

Milacron · Sep 23, 2011

autofrite said:
i had thought about this myself,what about a flapwheel in a die grinder mounted to the toolpost?
i have seen various setups like this,i guess it all depends how serious a person wants to get.

I don't think a little flapwheel in a die grinder would remove enough metal in this case to get below all dings. Surely someone here has attempted to turn the outside of a chuck before...but with what, standard HSS tools or ?

sicero · Sep 23, 2011

I have used a surace grinder on the face and sand the outside.
May have to restamp ID numbers. Kenny

tdmidget · Sep 23, 2011

Chucks are not hard material. I would put a piece in and indicate as near perfect as possible. High speed is plenty good for this. With the workpiece as perfect as you can get it, skim the OD. Remove the jaws and face it, again a skim cut. Clean, deburr and polish with Scotchbrite.

gwilson · Sep 23, 2011

Why can't the chuck be mounted,jaws taken out,perhaps stuffed and taped to keep dust out of the internals,and ground with a tool post grinder? That's what I'd do.

310 Guy · Sep 23, 2011

Milacron said:
I don't think a little flapwheel in a die grinder would remove enough metal in this case to get below all dings. Surely someone here has attempted to turn the outside of a chuck before...but with what, standard HSS tools or ?

Put a flapwheel on a 4-1/2" right angle grinder. Turn lathe on a medium speed, hold grinder up to chuck... I PROMISE you that it will remove enough metal. As a matter of fact, you better use a light touch with the grinder, or it will remove too much. For a really pretty finish you could use a 1/4" collet right-angle air grinder with a 2" Scotchbrite wheel. We use these all the time on aircraft sheetmetal work; leaves a nice finish.

FishTaco · Sep 23, 2011

gwilson said:
Why can't the chuck be mounted,jaws taken out,perhaps stuffed and taped to keep dust out of the internals,and ground with a tool post grinder? That's what I'd do.

You could take it apart remove the scroll remount and dial the OD and Face in and just skim the face. There is absolutely no reason why you cant take .02-.03 off the face of that chuck. De-burr with a file clean the insides and reassemble.

tdmidget · Sep 23, 2011

I realize that Milacron is a machinery salesman but there is no reason to assume that is of the same stripe as used car salesmen. I hope. There fore ideas such as flap wheels and such that may prettyfy but not retain accuracy are invalid. The OD of a chuck SHOULD correspond to the workpiece held within. As it wears or is abused this goes away. But to do anything to increase it's saleability with out trying to restore that correlation is less than ethical. That rules out all the various "brightening" or "polishing" means in favor those that maintain at least a semblance of accuracy .

ewlsey · Sep 23, 2011

tdmidget said:
I realize that Milacron is a machinery salesman but there is no reason to assume that is of the same stripe as used car salesmen. I hope. There fore ideas such as flap wheels and such that may prettyfy but not retain accuracy are invalid. The OD of a chuck SHOULD correspond to the workpiece held within. As it wears or is abused this goes away. But to do anything to increase it's saleability with out trying to restore that correlation is less than ethical. That rules out all the various "brightening" or "polishing" means in favor those that maintain at least a semblance of accuracy .

Yeah.

It's his forum I guess.

Chucks, tool holders, collets, etc. are all wear items. They don't last forever.

Mike C. · Sep 23, 2011

A nice coat of blue paint perhaps? (ducks quickly)

Question Boy · Sep 23, 2011

Good grief Milacron, it's 2011, could you at least whip out the iphone so we can see what we're dealing with? :toetap:

For every ding in the metal there's a corresponding raised ring around the imperfection working hard to catch the light and make it look worse than it is. Sometimes a simple stoning of the surface followed with your favorite Scotchbrite (held against the spinning tool) is enough of an improvement to keep you from doing something nutty to an otherwise fine tool... :nutter:

QB

Steve in SoCal · Sep 23, 2011

FWIW,

I got a nice 6" Cushman 4 jaw that had a number of shallow marks on the OD, I removed the jaws, the screws were below the surface and, skim cut it with a CMNG tool. I did the OD and a very light face cut, speed was pretty high and the feed was fine. The finish is amazing.

Steve

Forrest Addy · Sep 24, 2011

Broad nose it D. If the chuck body is semi-steel and you take a few 0.0008" (that's right: 0.0008", no more, no less) cuts with about 1/8" / rev radial feed with a dead sharp parting tool dialed in face on you should get a 32 microinch finish. This is tricky work so be sure to dot the I's and cross the t's. If there's imbedded debris in the original finish you may ding the tool so be prepared to touch it up.

I used to finish machine tool ways using this technique on a planer but I used gooseneck tools and cutting edges 3/4" wide and 5/8" incremental cross-feed.

moonlight machine · Sep 24, 2011

I had a chuck that came with by Southbend that looked like someone was beating on it with a hammer. I just took the jaws out and took a cut off it. It's not rocket science, just do it...........

Milacron · Sep 24, 2011

tdmidget said:
I realize that Milacron is a machinery salesman but there is no reason to assume that is of the same stripe as used car salesmen. I hope. There fore ideas such as flap wheels and such that may prettyfy but not retain accuracy are invalid. The OD of a chuck SHOULD correspond to the workpiece held within. As it wears or is abused this goes away. But to do anything to increase it's saleability with out trying to restore that correlation is less than ethical. That rules out all the various "brightening" or "polishing" means in favor those that maintain at least a semblance of accuracy .

If you were paying attention you'd notice I almost never sell tooling....there is simply no money in it worth messing with...especially if any labor is involved to boot....this is for myself. There are companies out there that specalize in rebuilding larger chucks and I've seen before and after photos where the "before" chuck looks waaaaaay worse than this one....are these companies "unethical" ?....gimme a break...you are FOS on this. Don't always assume the worst.

Milacron · Sep 24, 2011

Question Boy said:
Good grief Milacron, it's 2011, could you at least whip out the iphone so we can see what we're dealing with?

Sure but seeing as-
1. Chuck is 35 miles away
2. Not as simple to display iPhone photo on web as "send email"
3. Not necessary due to descripton anyway

M.B. Naegle · Sep 24, 2011

I'm just combining Idea's.... Pull the jaws out and plug the holes, Put the spindle in low speed, and hold a surfacing stone to it for the face. Might work on the OD too. Should be fairly accurate, somewhat quick (depending on the damage), and shiny.

It won't have the spec's of a new one... but it isn't new so oh well.

On a lighter note: Wouldn't it be nice if someone made those car dent removers (the ones with the suction cups) to Super Heavy Duty, ultra-micro specifications? Just yank that metal back to the surface! lol

Most practical method to "pretty up" Buck 5 inch 3 jaw chuck ?

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