Turning Wood at Home: Holding Wood

Wood turning, as a specialty in woodworking, offers a variety of fields within itself. From the bowl makers to the pen turners, everyone has a niche of their own which he/she can choose to specialize in. No matter which discipline you choose to specialize in, any lathe will be able to achieve the goal – for the most part. However, because of the various disciplines within this genre, the wood pieces which are turned have different shapes and sizes. This requires as many different options to hold/clamp the wood securely onto the wood lathe. Lathe Chucks are vital components for this job.

 Variety of Chucks

Four-Jaw Chucks

These are the most widely used chucks and they offer a variety of functions. The 4-jaw chucks are able to accommodate square pieces very well while offering a very strong grip on rounder wood pieces. Another advantage of the four-jaw chuck is the ability to turn stock in an off-center fashion to create more irregular and unique final pieces. Because the 4-jaw chuck has these four jaws which can be individually adjusted, the precision of your work can be fine-tuned to your liking. This also, however, means that the adjusting of these chucks can be quite time consuming and laborious. It is also much harder to hold hex-dimensional wood pieces in these chucks – almost impossible.

Three-Jaw Chucks

Unlike the four-jaw chucks discussed above, the 3-jaw chucks are self-centering. This makes the holding of your wood stock in a centered position a far faster and easier process. This does, however, also mean that one would not be able to hold stock in an off-center position using these chucks. Although unable to hold irregular shapes, these chucks do offer the advantage of being able to hold hex-shaped stock (which the 4-jaw alternative cannot).

Using these chucks

Over the years woodworkers have communed to discuss the best possible ways to use chucks for the various types of wood turning they would like to get into.

• Bowl turning

Making bowls out of wood remains a favourite amongst woodworkers. Holding your initial square, thick piece of lumber is most commonly achieved by using a forstner bit to drill a hole approximately ¾ of the size of your chuck’s capacity. Once you have done this, you then fit your chuck into this hole, push your piece firmly against the face of the chuck, then begin to expand the jaws against the walls of the drilled hole in order to secure the piece.

• Pen making

  For the purpose of making linear shaped pieces of wood like pens and furniture legs, the process of holding the wood is approached slightly differently. One first saws he/she’s lumber into a rectangular shape of stock. The end of the wood piece which will be secured onto the chuck needs to be approximately ¾ of the size of the maximum capacity of your lathe chuck. One then secures this piece on all four sides. Once you have completed your turning, you can either decide to have the square piece on the chuck-end sawn off or using it as a secure base to perhaps join this leg onto the base of a table top.

Using Drill Chucks

Drill chucks can also be used in wood turning. Because some woodworkers may only have benchtop drill presses and also to improve effeciency, many would choose to drill the holes require for their pens and wooden “pipes” on the lathe itself as seen below.

View our full range of our Lathe Chucks on Tools4Wood.