"DoN. Nichols" wrote in message
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[ ... ]

I need some lapping compound for another purpose (lapping dovetails) so I
shall go hunting this week. It is always so much fun watching the faces
of
the shop assistants when you ask for something like that...

And watch them try to come up with obscene interpretations of
what you are asking for? :-)

That would imply that they possess a) sense of humor and b) intelligence.

There is a game I play with my wife. We bet on the assistants' responses.
When asked "Can I help you?" while looking at an item one initiates the game
by responding: "Does this thing do (fill in as appropriate)?"

For 5 points the assistant starts reading the information on the packet.
For 10 points he starts lying through his teeth.

There are many variations....

[...]

I put wooden handles on the wood lathe ones.

Your wood lathe has that kind of chuck?

Nova Midi (Teknatool).

[...]

I was kind of concerned - I can make the bars bend in my hands alone.
Lord
knows what would happen with more leverage.

Then you need hardened and drawn drill rod, with the larger
diameter just outside the hole minimizing the bending. If you just
harden it fully, it will be too brittle and be likely to break of right
at the chuck body. So after hardening (for an oil or water hardening
drill rod -- be sure to use the proper quench agent for each) you can
re-heat it to a lower temperature -- at a guess about 450 F would be
reasonable and then leave it to cool normally. Air hardening drill rod
is difficult to get to less hard than your original quench produced, so
that should be avoided for this purpose. However, it is nice when you
are experiencing warpage when you quench because the air cooling is a
lot more gentle.

I am getting old and feeble in a hurry. It won't be an issue much longer.

BTW -- how well lubricated is the scroll plate? The less you
have to fight friction in the plate bearings and in the scroll to jaw
tooth engagement, the more of your force will go towards tightening the
chuck jaws on the workpiece.

A squirt of graphite as per T-nut post. But I guess it could be better.
It
is hard to know without having any standards to compare.

Did you work it in fully after squirting it? BTW -- Teenut
worked with serious sized industrial machines, and might have given
different advice for lubricating a chuck as small as a that used on a
Taig. (That advice might have been "Get a bigger machine" :-)

A pity that he is no longer with us.

He did not say anything about working it in! I squirt it in and run the
chuck scroll through the range of motion. Then I mount the chuck on the
spindle. Then I forget that I left some oil somewhere in the chuck recesses.
Then I wipe the oil/graphite solution off my face and everything else...( I
only read his post recently - before, I put oil everywhere and wondered why
the chucks were a bugger to clean).

The info, BTW, comes from his post where he strongly advises home machine
owners *not* to use way oil and use *detergent* motor oil for the ways
amongst other things. I probably should not have mentioned it. I can see
scores of people reading it spontaneously combusting...

--
Michael Koblic,
Campbell River, BC