# Rusty 3 Jaw Chuck



## Chuck K (Jun 24, 2017)

A while back I bought a Hendey lathe.  The gentleman I bought it from was a retired mold maker that hadn't used his machines for a while.  He gave me a ton of tooling and other related stuff that he had no use for anymore.  His shop had some roof issues so there was some stuff that got wet and rusty.  One of those things was a brand new 3 jaw chuck that he never got around to using.  It was so rusty that I couldn't get the scroll or the jaws out of it.  I let it soak in tranny fluid for a couple of weeks.  This morning I slammed it down on my welding bench a few times and the scroll finally came loose.  I decided to set up an electrolytic bath for it and see if I can save it.  I used 4 pieces of 1/8" plate around the perimeter of a rectangler plastic container.  Heres a pic of the chuck submerged in the electolyte and bubbling away. I didn't have the forsight to take a pic of the chuck before hand but I did get a pic of the scroll and pinions.


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## Zathros (Jun 25, 2017)

WoW this must have been almost unrecognizable before.


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## Groundhog (Jun 25, 2017)

Well, the red tank seems to be labeled right! Good luck.


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## Tozguy (Jun 25, 2017)

Looking forward to seeing how it turns out. I'm betting that you will be happy.


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## Chuck K (Jun 25, 2017)

Groundhog said:


> Well, the red tank seems to be labeled right! Good luck.


LOL....I thought the same thing.


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## Chuck K (Jun 25, 2017)

Tozguy said:


> Looking forward to seeing how it turns out. I'm betting that you will be happy.


I don't think its going to be a showpiece.  One section of it is deeply pitted.  As long as the important parts are smooth and clean I'll be happy.  It appears to be an import.  I don't know if it ran true before it was left to rust.


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## Chuck K (Jun 25, 2017)

Zathros said:


> WoW this must have been almost unrecognizable before.
> 
> 
> Verzonden vanaf mijn iPhone met Tapatalk Pro


Yep.  Probably not worth messing with.  I have 3 chucks that came with the lathe that arent as bad.  I'll probably give them the same treatment.


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## Ulma Doctor (Jun 25, 2017)

the parts will need a vigorous brushing with a stainless steel brush after you get done with the electrolytic bath.
the electrolytic process converts red rust to black rust, the magnetite (black rust) should be removed by scrubbing and rinse with water, thoroughly dry.
the parts will start rusting in regular atmosphere almost immediately after drying.
you'll want to put some Colonel Red's Anti- Rust, or your favorite light oil to prevent further oxidation.
good luck, i look forward to seeing the results


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## Chuck K (Jun 25, 2017)

Ulma Doctor said:


> the parts will need a vigorous brushing with a stainless steel brush after you get done with the electrolytic bath.
> the electrolytic process converts red rust to black rust, the magnetite (black rust) should be removed by scrubbing and rinse with water, thoroughly dry.
> the parts will start rusting in regular atmosphere almost immediately after drying.
> you'll want to put some Colonel Red's Anti- Rust, or your favorite light oil to prevent further oxidation.
> good luck, i look forward to seeing the results


Here's a few of the parts.  I coated them with some eds red.  The outside of the body is pitted badly but the rest of it cleans up well enough.  Anyone recognize the logo?


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## Ulma Doctor (Jun 25, 2017)

the jaws and jaw ways will be the real factor here. if they survived and the back of the chuck is relatively flat- i'd say you got a save!!!
nice work!


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## Chuck K (Jun 25, 2017)

Ulma Doctor said:


> the jaws and jaw ways will be the real factor here. if they survived and the back of the chuck is relatively flat- i'd say you got a save!!!
> nice work!


Thanks.  I think it will work alright.  I'll find out some day when I have a need for a 3 jaw, until then I'll just lube it up and put it on the shelf.


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## Groundhog (Jun 26, 2017)

Looks like it is coming out pretty good. It doesn't have to be shinny and pit free to hold tight and run accurately. Will most likely be a very good and serviceable chuck. And the price is hard to beat.


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## samthedog (Jun 26, 2017)

Just attach the chuck to the spindle minus the jaws and skim cut the surfaces. It will look new when you are done.

Paul.


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## Tozguy (Jun 26, 2017)

Chuck K said:


> Thanks.  I think it will work alright.  I'll find out some day when I have a need for a 3 jaw, until then I'll just lube it up and put it on the shelf.



Chuck, what if we want to how much run out it has? 
Seriously, wouldn't you like to know how it works on the lathe before depending on it for eventual use?


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## Chuck K (Jun 26, 2017)

Tozguy said:


> Chuck, what if we want to how much run out it has?
> Seriously, wouldn't you like to know how it works on the lathe before depending on it for eventual use?


Ok, you beat me down.  It doesn't have a backplate on it so all I could do was mount it in my 4 jaw on my Polamco.  Its only an 8" 4 jaw so its not something that I wanted to spin up.  I dialed it in with a 7/8" drill blank mounted in it.  Then changed to a 1/2" drill blank and had less than 0.001 runout.  The jaws fit well and slide smoothly.  I don't currently have a large enough back plate to mount it on the Hendey.  It's too big for the Polamco.....to the shelf it goes.


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## Tozguy (Jun 27, 2017)

Thanks Chuck


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## Silverbullet (Jun 27, 2017)

No matter what it's still useful , at worse it could be used for a welding positioner. Keep plenty of oil and or oil soaked rag.


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## Chuck K (Jun 27, 2017)

Silverbullet said:


> No matter what it's still useful , at worse it could be used for a welding positioner. Keep plenty of oil and or oil soaked rag.


Oh....I'll use it at some point.  I have a friend that just bought a leblond and he called looking for a chuck.  If it's not too big I'll probably give it to him.  He did a cheap rebuild on a shovelhead trans for me a while back....I kinda feel like I owe him.


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## Chuck K (Jun 27, 2017)

On to the rusty 12" 4 jaw.  This time I took before pics.


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## Chuck K (Jun 28, 2017)

Moving right along.  The 4 jaw is just about to go back together. I have pics of it submerged in the bath,  then right after it came out, and then after the black junk has been brushed off.  The only parts that haven't went through the bath are the screws and split pins.  I have them organized in the order they came out.  I don't know if that's necessary but I can clean them mechanically one at a time and reinstall them.  It won't look shiny new but it is about 75 years old.


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## Chuck K (Jul 2, 2017)

I finised with the rusty chucks this morning.  I ran 4 chucks through the tank.  The 3 jaw that I started this thread about, an 8" 4 jaw combination, a 12" 4 jaw cushman, and a 10" 3 jaw cushman.  The cushman chucks both have the taper backplate to fit the Hendey.  I like using a 4 jaw or collets for most stuff and a 3 jaw with soft jaws at times.  When I saw the soft jaws on the 3 jaw I didn't really think much abou it.  When I Reassembled it I found out why.  It doesn't have the original master jaws.  This became evident when the jaws didn't close evenly.  My first thought was that I had them out of order.  Nope.  Checked the numbers...hmmm.  They didn't match the number on the face of the chuck.  The weirdest part is, I had to install them 2,3,1 to get something close enough to be usable with soft jaws.  Wish I would have paid attention when I took it apart to see what order he was running them.  Not something I anticipated.


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## Ulma Doctor (Jul 2, 2017)

hey Chuck, as a point of information, you can pour the electrolytic bucket water on your lawn after you're done with it
the lawn will love it!
keep it away from flowers and shrubs, there is too much iron in the spent electrolyte solution for their tastes.


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## Chuck K (Jul 2, 2017)

Yep....my lawn is due for a drink.  After all those parts the tub is pretty funky.


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## 4GSR (Jul 3, 2017)

Ulma Doctor said:


> hey Chuck, as a point of information, you can pour the electrolytic bucket water on your lawn after you're done with it
> the lawn will love it!
> keep it away from flowers and shrubs, there is too much iron in the spent electrolyte solution for their tastes.


Hope there is none of those hex-chromes floating around in that bathtub... May want to make sure the PH is around 6 or higher, not too high, before dumping.


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## Ulma Doctor (Jul 3, 2017)

4gsr said:


> Hope there is none of those hex-chromes floating around in that bathtub... May want to make sure the PH is around 6 or higher, not too high, before dumping.


Good points.
 i'm no authority by any means,
The paper i read on electrolyitic rust removal suggested that the spent electrolyte is relatively safe unless stainless steel is anywhere in the tank.
The paper further suggested feeding it to your lawn.
From first hand experience, the lawn never looked better with untreated spent electrolyte at unknown Ph.
I can't comment whether any hex-chromes are present, but the subject is certainly worthy of investigation.


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## 4GSR (Jul 3, 2017)

A place I worked at several years ago had a chemist working for them in the maintenance department.  His job was taking care of all collecting and disposal of all spent coolants, phosphating bath waters, oils, etc.  He told me as long as the PH was close to 7 in any water based solutions that did not have soluble oil in it, could be, like you said, dumped on the ground.   Of course, he also said, if any solutions contained hard metals like Cr, he didn't want to know about it, and it better not get dumped on company property!  Yeah, phosphoric acid as found in phosphating solutions were ok to dump as long as the PH level was 7.  But, the heavy metals kept it from being dumped down the sewer!  It was hauled off in big vacuum trucks at $3000 a truck load back then!


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