Stuck Chuck

[OlCatBob]

Hi all,
Upon reading this post, I thought I'd chime in with my two-cents worth. I have a 14X36 Rockford that came with a 7 inch 3-jaw chuck, I don't have any idea how long it was on there, maybe original. I tried several times to remove it by tapping on a jaw, or whatever other method I could think of. I finally chucked up a piece of 3/4" hex, put it in back gear, placed a 15" adjustable wrench with a 4' piece of pipe on that, put reasonnable pressure on that, and with a 1/2" air impact, started rattling on the hex with a 6 point socket. It actually took about 4 or 5 minutes for all the rattling to shake it loose, but it was successful.

Bob

 

[irishwoodsman]

there you have it folks, no more stuck chuck, great idea:holdphone:

 

[Tony Wells]

Never had to deal with this myself, but have thought that a hole could be drilled and reamed in the shoulder just behind the thread of the spindle, and a corresponding hole drilled and tapped in the backing plate. With that hole either counterbored or countersunk, tap it, turn a close fitting dog point that would be in shear as it locks the chuck onto the spindle.

Note: That's definitely not the sequence of operations to get there. You get to figure that out.

 

[Mike Gibson]

Tony,

Trying your suggestion of hanging weight. I have hung 75 lbs. on a 3 foot bar and heated the back plate twice. No luck yet. I'm going to leave the weight hanging overnight. I'm going to include a picture of the rig.
May hang more weight tomorrow.

 

[flatbelter]

Now tap on the bar with a suitable hammer and it should come off.

 

[110octane]

I'm curious as to what is "locking in" the bar going into the spindle, the one retained by the pipe wrench? Are you relying on the internal taper or is there something else securing the bar at the outboard end? Regardless, unless the threads are cross threaded or galled, your attempts should free things up. I recall seeing an article in an old English publication about effective ways to secure a threaded chuck for turning while in the reverse rotation. I think, if I recall, it used a thin locking ring with slots for a spanner. The problem I can see with that is the chuck or faceplate, etc. is supposed to register on the boss of the spindle and not on the threads. The use of a four jawed, or adjust-a-true type chuck might mitigate the TIR a little, but still things could get off axis.
I agree that a hammer blow or a shock to the lever should do the trick. I hope that things will turn out well. Geoff

 

[Mike Gibson]

The shaft you see in the spindle mates to a # 5 Morse taper with a drawbar on the outboard end.

 

[110octane]

The shaft you see in the spindle mates to a # 5 Morse taper with a drawbar on the outboard end.

That should hold it. That backing plate is really stuck! Something must be "messed up" with the threads....
Good Luck, Geoff

 

[British Steel]

Sticking unstuck chuck...

OK,

Now the Chuck is no longer a "Stuck Chuck" I have a question, has anyone seen a nice way of keeping "unstuck chucks" stuck, that is; I would like to be able to turn in reverse on my lathes with threaded spindles, Do we know of any suitable methods of holding the threaded chuck on while turning backwards.

Rick

Hi Rick,

One method I've seen is used on import belt-head lathes (the "BH600" type for instance):

On the chuck backplate there's a protruding boss that snugs up against a flange on the threaded spindle nose, the boss is drilled and tapped (M8 or about 5/16") for three capscrews which tighten L-shaped locking clamps that hook over the spindle flange - the short side of the L is slightly tapered to give some wedging force when tightening, the long side has a fairly snug fitting hole for the capscrew to tighten it down - it seems to work well, at least from the safety aspect, not sure how well it'd locate it rotationally for use in reverse - I guess fairly well, as the wedging effect would put a fair amount of pressure on the mating faces of the backplate and spindle nose.

This assumes, of course, that the spindle has a flange you can get the clamp behind and the backplate has a boss protruding more than 1/2" of so... YMMV!

I have seen one of these backplates that had been in the hands of a gorilla who tightened the clamps hard enough to break the threaded section out of the (cast iron) backplate, but I'm sure no-one here would be *that* brutal!

A pic of your lathe's spindle nose / backplate would help, maybe?

Dave H. (the other one)

 

[chief]

That Lathe looks like my 1979 Jet lathe, the way I get mine off is with the head on,
I put a 2 X 4 piece of wood and clamp in tight and hit it with a 2 LB Hamer and it comes right off,