"Bill Rubenstein" wrote in message
t...
My major problem with using a pin chuck is the same as for using a
faceplate -- once you have drilled the hole you have decided where the
center of the piece is going to be and also the orientation. As things
develop, defects are exposed, or pattern manifests itself, you are a
helpless bystander -- it is very difficult to change anything.

When starting between centers it is easy to reorient the wood when you
find you have not made the best choice. You can marvel at the beautiful
orientation in the pieces done by people like John Jordan but you cannot
duplicate it. He doesn't have x-ray vision, he starts between centers and
adjusts as he goes.


Well, of course the turner's eye can fail him occasionally, even if reading
the wood is a part of the art of turning. Sometimes you cut too far and
delve into a bark pocket or just have plain bad luck.

Fortunately there's an easy answer. Plug the old hole, drill a new one in
the desired orientation and begin turning as you did before. The hole is,
after all, something that will disappear when you're done hollowing, so
neatness doesn't count.

Those who are not institututionally biased will, of course recognize that
the roll pin is just that, a pin designed to resist the roll of the piece.
With soft wet woods I hedge my bets by starting the piece in motion to
reduce the starting shock. You know, the same starting shock that chews the
spurs out of the same soft wet wood, or chews the tenon up even worse by
gnawing them with toothed pieces of metal. If you have soft start, probably
don't need to bother, but it's a easy thing to do anyway. I can have the
piece turned, the mortise cut, embellished and sanded, even have the piece
hollowed around the pin chuck pillar and decide to go back and reshape the
bottom. I just mount the pin chuck in the same _undamaged_ and perfectly
centered hole and begin turning the outside again.

Why destroy your centering, mounting and recentering capability when you
don't need to? Or give up a center mark if you're turning between 'em?