Questions About My New/old Lathe.

For any lathe I must have a 3-jaw scroll chuck and an independent 4-jaw chuck. The 3-jaw that came with my lathe may be toast depending how it became stuck. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. And truing the jaws may do wonders for it if they're off and if they're soft enough. I hesitate to use a grinder on a lathe so hard jaws that are out of true may have to stay that way.

I'll watch ebay and check some other sites. Thanks!

BTW, do they make independent 3-jaw chucks?
 
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If you buy a chuck with 1"-8 threads, be sure to confirm that about the first 1-1.2 threads have been counter bored so that the chuck will screw onto the spindle until it touches the flange instead of being stopped by the threads. Someone within the past year had a serious runout problem with a 3-jaw because it wasn't counter bored. You should just be able to see where the bored out thread was because the major diameter of the female thread is a few thou larger than the counter bore diameter.
 
what's up with your 3 jaw? If it looks crappy and doesn't move freely it's probably just full of old grease and chips. Carefully take it apart, clean it and put it back together, then put the money you saved into a good 4 jaw :)

Also, no independent 3 jaws that I've seen (although that doesn't mean that much!) - I can imagine that they would be a nightmare to dial in. I have seen hybrid 4 jaw scroll/ independent chucks which looked interesting and you can get scrolling 4 jaw chucks too
 
BTW, do they make independent 3-jaw chucks?

Yes. And for many more $$$ they also make 3-jaw that are both. There are several independents and a couple of combinations on eBay at the moment, although most are fairly large. In general these would be considered special purpose chucks, not for general use. You could use one, for example, for production of eccentric shafts. Once set up, you would only loosen one jaw (and always the same one) to remove a finished part and mount the next one. Can't do that with a 4-jaw.
 
Was the 3-jaw Craftsman scroll chuck that came with the lathe be a hand-tighten type? Mine does have a ring on it that looks like it's made for a tommy bar but I thought chucks that used tommy bars used 2 of them to tighten and loosen.

Anyone know the Craftsman model number of an independent 4-jaw chuck that would have been made for (or at least work well on) the 101.07301?
 
Will one of these work?
Craftsman 111.21380 PAT.1977658 1" x 8tpi

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Assuming that the circle increments are 1/4" on the radius (and not 1/2" - there is nothing for size reference), that's a 4" so it should work fine.
 
That chuck is virtually identical to one I bought to use on my 618 and it works great. Pat # is the same just the model is slightly different at 111.21460, possibly because I have the 1 x 10 spindle.

-frank
 
Yep, it's a 4".

Matt,

You asked about the 3-jaw chuck that came with the lathe. I checked it some more yesterday. I put a 1/2" dia. piece of TG&P in it and tightened it up. I could wiggle the rod quite a bit. I think they refer to the problem with the chuck as bell mouth. I'll have to true up the jaws before I can trust that chuck but it works smoothly and seems pretty solid so I think it's worth trying to fix.

If I can fix the 3-jaw scroll chuck then I'll have it, an independent 4-jaw (when it arrives), and a faceplate. That should be good.
 
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