Stuck Chuck???

T

Tamper84

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On my lathe, Clausing 5429, the chuck is stuck on the spindle. I have been going out every day and giving it a healthy dose of pb blaster. It won't budge, I have put chucked a 2x4 in ther and tried to use it as leverage nothing. Any ideas? I didn't push to hard, it's a Bison 3 jaw and I don't really want to screw anything up. Yes I did have a piece of wood on the ways to protect them if it did come off

Thanks,
Chris
 
Chris,

Make sure it's a spin-on type chuck before you try to unscrew it :whistle:. I'm pretty sure that's an older lathe and probably has a screw-on chuck. Assuming you've verified it's a spin on, the usual key to success is getting the longest bar you can get your hands on (3-5' is good), weld a 90 degree angle on the end that you can tighten in the chuck and then, apply as much pressure as you dare and have someone whack the center of the bar with a good sized hammer. It's usually the impacts from the hammer that does the trick. Of course, the spindle has to be locked somehow. How you go about that depends on your situation and setup. You may need to make a fixture of some sort that possibly grabs around some gears. -Sucks but there's almost no way around it.

BTW: Aside from just rusting into place, the #1 way a chuck gets hopelessly tightened is from interrupted cuts -like knocking the corners off a square plate to make it round. Each little impact of the bit hitting the work tightens the chuck. Whenever you do those kinds of cuts, go lightly and stop once in a while to make sure the chuck isn't getting jammed on.

Ray




Tamper84 said:
On my lathe, Clausing 5429, the chuck is stuck on the spindle. I have been going out every day and giving it a healthy dose of pb blaster. It won't budge, I have put chucked a 2x4 in ther and tried to use it as leverage nothing. Any ideas? I didn't push to hard, it's a Bison 3 jaw and I don't really want to screw anything up. Yes I did have a piece of wood on the ways to protect them if it did come off

Thanks,
Chris
Click to expand...
 
Thanks Ray. I have been trying to add a picture but having a hard time.

Any way, I will have to try making up a bar. Thanks for the idea. To take that one step farther, do you think chucking up a piece of stock with a socket on it and using my impact is a good idea?

I forgot to add it is a threaded chuck. That would of been a good piece of information wouldn't of been?? Lol.

Thanks again,
Chris
 
Hi Chris,

When I was attempting the same thing with an old Leblond I had a 1 inch impact on the center of the stock I clamped to and while hanging on a long lever I found it did not do much to use the impact. The long lever arm with a sledge tap did the job right away though.

-Matt
 
Tamper84 said:
On my lathe, Clausing 5429, the chuck is stuck on the spindle. I have been going out every day and giving it a healthy dose of pb blaster. It won't budge, I have put chucked a 2x4 in ther and tried to use it as leverage nothing. Any ideas? I didn't push to hard, it's a Bison 3 jaw and I don't really want to screw anything up. Yes I did have a piece of wood on the ways to protect them if it did come off

Thanks,
Chris
Click to expand...

Chris, see my post here. My Bison 3-jaw (hey, you got my chuck!?! ;) ) was really stuck on my Heavy 10 when I got the lathe. This got it off relatively easily. Good luck.
 
Thanks guys. I may have to make me a splat wrench lol. But what is making me nervous is locking the lathe with the back gears. I'll have to try a strap wrench as well... Decisions decisions lol

thanks,
Chris
 
Tamper84 said:
Thanks guys. I may have to make me a splat wrench lol. But what is making me nervous is locking the lathe with the back gears. I'll have to try a strap wrench as well... Decisions decisions lol
Click to expand...

There's no need to use the back gears. To elaborate on how it works: Lay a board right under the chuck to cover and protect the bedways, then spin the chuck so there's a jaw about 3 o'clock and put a piece of 2x4 there between the jaw and the wood covering the bedways. Then after you get the Splatwrench© or a big-ass strap wrench onto the back of the spindle and tighten up the bolts on it you will be pulling up (standing in front of lathe) on the Splatwrench©. The only thing to watch is if you have a lever collet closer assembly then you should not clamp onto the area on the spindle where the collet closer engages.

This method works Chris. Give it a shot and you'll get it off. Good luck.
 
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