I was looking at the escoulen chucks in woodturners catalog and thinking they
would be kinda fun...

Are they difficult to set up and use?

Do you need to spend $350 for the Deluxe or is the slightly less expensive
Standard ok for most stuff?

I sort of hate to invest a bunch of money on another toy that I end up not
using...


mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

"mac davis" wrote: (clip) I sort of hate to invest a bunch of money on
another toy that I end up not using...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I watched Escoulen demo his chuck, and I must say two things:
1.) The chuck is really elegant.
2.) His work is so weird I am not interested in buying a chuck to do what
he does.

So I made an inexpensive substitute. I turned a vacuum chuck which has a
large concave spherical surface. I can hold my work off axis, out to the
edge of the gripping surface. I did a couple of oddball things with it, and
then lost interest.

It has one important advantage over Escoulen's chuck. When the wood is
tilted off-axis, it spins in a conical orbit. Escaulen's wood has the tip
of the cone at the chuck end, and the free end of the wood is spinning in a
circle. My wood has the tip of the cone ON AXIS, where it can be supported
by the live center. The large end of the cone is held in the vacuum chuck,
so both ends of the work are supported.

An advantage of Escoulen's chuck is that it gives you measured and
reproducible offset settings--my crude system doesn't have that.

Mac
I turned a piece of wood to a sort of round with a flat on it, like a ball
with one part sanded flat. The flat works as a glue block and the round gets
held in my One Way Chuck. It let me play a bit like the Escoulon chuck,
enough to know I have no need for one. It may work for you to give it a try.

--
God bless and safe turning
Darrell Feltmate
Truro, NS
http://aroundthewoods.com
http://roundopinions.blogspot.com

"mac davis" wrote in message
...
I was looking at the escoulen chucks in woodturners catalog and thinking
they
would be kinda fun...

Are they difficult to set up and use?

Do you need to spend $350 for the Deluxe or is the slightly less expensive
Standard ok for most stuff?

I sort of hate to invest a bunch of money on another toy that I end up not
using...


mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

On Aug 4, 12:02 pm, mac davis wrote:
I was looking at the escoulen chucks in woodturners catalog and thinking they
would be kinda fun...

Are they difficult to set up and use?

Do you need to spend $350 for the Deluxe or is the slightly less expensive
Standard ok for most stuff?

I sort of hate to invest a bunch of money on another toy that I end up not
using...

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

Try this link it might not work.
http://www.thewows.com/isapi.dll?c=C...tentclass=FILE

On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 22:14:50 GMT, "Darrell Feltmate"
wrote:

Mac
I turned a piece of wood to a sort of round with a flat on it, like a ball
with one part sanded flat. The flat works as a glue block and the round gets
held in my One Way Chuck. It let me play a bit like the Escoulon chuck,
enough to know I have no need for one. It may work for you to give it a try.

That sounds interesting, Darrell ... did you take any pictures of it?
I've never noticed it on your site..


mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 16:41:16 GMT, "Leo Lichtman"
wrote:


"mac davis" wrote: (clip) I sort of hate to invest a bunch of money on
another toy that I end up not using...
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
I watched Escoulen demo his chuck, and I must say two things:
1.) The chuck is really elegant.
2.) His work is so weird I am not interested in buying a chuck to do what
he does.

I don't want to do really far out things, I don't think...
More of a mild offset once in a while or maybe a few goblets...

I saved the stuff below for a few cups of coffee later... having trouble with
the picturing it...

So I made an inexpensive substitute. I turned a vacuum chuck which has a
large concave spherical surface. I can hold my work off axis, out to the
edge of the gripping surface. I did a couple of oddball things with it, and
then lost interest.

It has one important advantage over Escoulen's chuck. When the wood is
tilted off-axis, it spins in a conical orbit. Escaulen's wood has the tip
of the cone at the chuck end, and the free end of the wood is spinning in a
circle. My wood has the tip of the cone ON AXIS, where it can be supported
by the live center. The large end of the cone is held in the vacuum chuck,
so both ends of the work are supported.

An advantage of Escoulen's chuck is that it gives you measured and
reproducible offset settings--my crude system doesn't have that.



mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

On Sun, 05 Aug 2007 04:00:10 -0000, Canchippy wrote:

On Aug 4, 12:02 pm, mac davis wrote:
I was looking at the escoulen chucks in woodturners catalog and thinking they
would be kinda fun...

Are they difficult to set up and use?

Do you need to spend $350 for the Deluxe or is the slightly less expensive
Standard ok for most stuff?

I sort of hate to invest a bunch of money on another toy that I end up not
using...

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

Try this link it might not work.
http://www.thewows.com/isapi.dll?c=C...tentclass=FILE

the link worked, but I haven't been to WOW in so long I haven't a clue as to my
password..


mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

On Aug 4, 8:02 am, mac davis wrote:
I was looking at the escoulen chucks in woodturners catalog and thinking they
would be kinda fun...

Are they difficult to set up and use?

Do you need to spend $350 for the Deluxe or is the slightly less expensive
Standard ok for most stuff?

I sort of hate to invest a bunch of money on another toy that I end up not
using...

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing


Hello Mac,

I have both of the Escoulen Chuck, the Robert Sorby Eccentric Chuck,
and the Axminister Eccentric Chuck. They all allow you to do things
that are difficult to do with normal chucking systems. I personally
don't have enough imagination to fully use any of them. That said, you
can do stuff similar to the Escoulen Chuck with a standard chuck with
teeth in it like the Oneway chucks, but without the precision
adjustment of the Escoulen Chuck. You can also get the offset effect
of the Sorby and Axminister chucks with two pieces of wood mounted on
a faceplate and a lot of screws. Michael Werner just demonstrated this
at the Utah Woodturning Symposium in June. You can also get the
effects of the regular Escoulen Chuck by using a Ball Chuck like I use
for the Chinese Balls and holding a wooden ball in it with the
workpiece attached to the ball. Finally, you can do some awsome pieces
of eccentric turning between centers.

What I'm really saying is that it is not necessary to purchase one of
the eccentric chucks on the market to do eccentric turning. They do
make the task a bit easier and less fiddley. The $350 Escoulen Chuck
is a awsome piece of work and allows you to do many things, giving two
methods of eccentricity in in single chuck.

Fred Holder
http://www.fholder.com

Fred Holder wrote:
On Aug 4, 8:02 am, mac davis wrote:
I was looking at the escoulen chucks in woodturners catalog and thinking they
would be kinda fun...

Are they difficult to set up and use?

Do you need to spend $350 for the Deluxe or is the slightly less expensive
Standard ok for most stuff?

I sort of hate to invest a bunch of money on another toy that I end up not
using...

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing


Hello Mac,

I have both of the Escoulen Chuck, the Robert Sorby Eccentric Chuck,
and the Axminister Eccentric Chuck. They all allow you to do things
that are difficult to do with normal chucking systems. I personally
don't have enough imagination to fully use any of them. That said, you
can do stuff similar to the Escoulen Chuck with a standard chuck with
teeth in it like the Oneway chucks, but without the precision
adjustment of the Escoulen Chuck. You can also get the offset effect
of the Sorby and Axminister chucks with two pieces of wood mounted on
a faceplate and a lot of screws. Michael Werner just demonstrated this
at the Utah Woodturning Symposium in June. You can also get the
effects of the regular Escoulen Chuck by using a Ball Chuck like I use
for the Chinese Balls and holding a wooden ball in it with the
workpiece attached to the ball. Finally, you can do some awsome pieces
of eccentric turning between centers.

What I'm really saying is that it is not necessary to purchase one of
the eccentric chucks on the market to do eccentric turning. They do
make the task a bit easier and less fiddley. The $350 Escoulen Chuck
is a awsome piece of work and allows you to do many things, giving two
methods of eccentricity in in single chuck.

Fred Holder
http://www.fholder.com


I got the opportunity to obtain one of the Kelton eccentric faceplates
with an angle face plate and a balancer last year. It dwarfs the others
and permits mounting a regular 4 jaw chuck. My only problem is finding
the time to use it. (lots of ideas but only about 1 afternoon a week
to use the lathe) I've been studying the geometry of the possibilities
but only on paper. I've done a couple pieces to test it out but I'd
like to see what others have done (something besides odd candle sticks).

One of my test pieces was a hollow form but I discovered that it was too
small to place the opening too far off center

Sorry, Mac. I did not get any pictures but I will do it again first chance
and take some.

--
God bless and safe turning
Darrell Feltmate
Truro, NS
http://aroundthewoods.com
http://roundopinions.blogspot.com

"mac davis" wrote in message
...
On Sat, 04 Aug 2007 22:14:50 GMT, "Darrell Feltmate"
wrote:

Mac
I turned a piece of wood to a sort of round with a flat on it, like a ball
with one part sanded flat. The flat works as a glue block and the round
gets
held in my One Way Chuck. It let me play a bit like the Escoulon chuck,
enough to know I have no need for one. It may work for you to give it a
try.

That sounds interesting, Darrell ... did you take any pictures of it?
I've never noticed it on your site..


mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

In article . com,
Fred Holder wrote:



I have both of the Escoulen Chuck, the Robert Sorby Eccentric Chuck,
and the Axminister Eccentric Chuck. They all allow you to do things
that are difficult to do with normal chucking systems. I personally
don't have enough imagination to fully use any of them. That said, you
can do stuff similar to the Escoulen Chuck with a standard chuck with
teeth in it like the Oneway chucks, but without the precision
adjustment of the Escoulen Chuck. You can also get the offset effect
of the Sorby and Axminister chucks with two pieces of wood mounted on
a faceplate and a lot of screws. Michael Werner just demonstrated this
at the Utah Woodturning Symposium in June. You can also get the
effects of the regular Escoulen Chuck by using a Ball Chuck like I use
for the Chinese Balls and holding a wooden ball in it with the
workpiece attached to the ball. Finally, you can do some awsome pieces
of eccentric turning between centers.

What I'm really saying is that it is not necessary to purchase one of
the eccentric chucks on the market to do eccentric turning. They do
make the task a bit easier and less fiddley. The $350 Escoulen Chuck
is a awsome piece of work and allows you to do many things, giving two
methods of eccentricity in in single chuck.

Fred Holder
http://www.fholder.com

Fred, did you get a chance to look at the Vicmarc at Portland?

--
--------------------------------------------------------
Personal e-mail is the n7bsn but at amsat.org
This posting address is a spam-trap and seldom read
RV and Camping FAQ can be found at
http://www.ralphandellen.us/rv

On Aug 6, 4:32 am, Ralph E Lindberg wrote:
In article . com,
Fred Holder wrote:





I have both of the Escoulen Chuck, the Robert Sorby Eccentric Chuck,
and the Axminister Eccentric Chuck. They all allow you to do things
that are difficult to do with normal chucking systems. I personally
don't have enough imagination to fully use any of them. That said, you
can do stuff similar to the Escoulen Chuck with a standard chuck with
teeth in it like the Oneway chucks, but without the precision
adjustment of the Escoulen Chuck. You can also get the offset effect
of the Sorby and Axminister chucks with two pieces of wood mounted on
a faceplate and a lot of screws. Michael Werner just demonstrated this
at the Utah Woodturning Symposium in June. You can also get the
effects of the regular Escoulen Chuck by using a Ball Chuck like I use
for the Chinese Balls and holding a wooden ball in it with the
workpiece attached to the ball. Finally, you can do some awsome pieces
of eccentric turning between centers.

What I'm really saying is that it is not necessary to purchase one of
the eccentric chucks on the market to do eccentric turning. They do
make the task a bit easier and less fiddley. The $350 Escoulen Chuck
is a awsome piece of work and allows you to do many things, giving two
methods of eccentricity in in single chuck.

Fred Holder
http://www.fholder.com

Fred, did you get a chance to look at the Vicmarc at Portland?

--
--------------------------------------------------------
Personal e-mail is the n7bsn but at amsat.org
This posting address is a spam-trap and seldom read
RV and Camping FAQ can be found athttp://www.ralphandellen.us/rv


Hello Ralph,

The Vicmarc booth in Portland was so franic with customers that I
barely spoke with anyone except Victor's wife and to ask permission
from Victor to use one of their VL-100's to turn a couple of Chinese
Balls, one of which I have to Victor's wife.

If they had their eccentric chuck at the show, I didn't see it. I did,
however, get an opportunity to see it on a computer screen when we
visited the Vicmarc plant last September, but Victor asked me not to
publicise it at that time. The design looked good and I made a couple
of suggestions for what I thought would be imporvements. If it is on
the market, I would guess it will be an excellent chuck as all of
their products are very well made.

Fred Holder
http://www.fholder/Woodturning/woodturn.htm

On Sun, 05 Aug 2007 07:59:50 -0700, Fred Holder wrote:


I have both of the Escoulen Chuck, the Robert Sorby Eccentric Chuck,
and the Axminister Eccentric Chuck. They all allow you to do things
that are difficult to do with normal chucking systems. I personally
don't have enough imagination to fully use any of them. That said, you
can do stuff similar to the Escoulen Chuck with a standard chuck with
teeth in it like the Oneway chucks, but without the precision
adjustment of the Escoulen Chuck. You can also get the offset effect
of the Sorby and Axminister chucks with two pieces of wood mounted on
a faceplate and a lot of screws. Michael Werner just demonstrated this
at the Utah Woodturning Symposium in June. You can also get the
effects of the regular Escoulen Chuck by using a Ball Chuck like I use
for the Chinese Balls and holding a wooden ball in it with the
workpiece attached to the ball. Finally, you can do some awsome pieces
of eccentric turning between centers.

What I'm really saying is that it is not necessary to purchase one of
the eccentric chucks on the market to do eccentric turning. They do
make the task a bit easier and less fiddley. The $350 Escoulen Chuck
is a awsome piece of work and allows you to do many things, giving two
methods of eccentricity in in single chuck.

Fred Holder
http://www.fholder.com

Thanks, Fred... very concise and helpful.. maybe you should do this for a living


My fear is that I'd blow the $300 to $400 and the chuck would end up being an
expensive shop decoration..

I think I need to play with my Oneway Talon a bit and maybe a jig or 2 and see
if I even LIKE eccentric turning...


mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

On Sun, 05 Aug 2007 17:28:56 GMT, "Darrell Feltmate"
wrote:

Sorry, Mac. I did not get any pictures but I will do it again first chance
and take some.

In one of your abundant periods of idle time, right Darrell?

You were in my thoughts this morning as I banged another finger while sanding an
angel wing bowl...


mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

On Aug 6, 8:36 am, mac davis wrote:
On Sun, 05 Aug 2007 07:59:50 -0700, Fred Holder wrote:
I have both of the Escoulen Chuck, the Robert Sorby Eccentric Chuck,
and the Axminister Eccentric Chuck. They all allow you to do things
that are difficult to do with normal chucking systems. I personally
don't have enough imagination to fully use any of them. That said, you
can do stuff similar to the Escoulen Chuck with a standard chuck with
teeth in it like the Oneway chucks, but without the precision
adjustment of the Escoulen Chuck. You can also get the offset effect
of the Sorby and Axminister chucks with two pieces of wood mounted on
a faceplate and a lot of screws. Michael Werner just demonstrated this
at the Utah Woodturning Symposium in June. You can also get the
effects of the regular Escoulen Chuck by using a Ball Chuck like I use
for the Chinese Balls and holding a wooden ball in it with the
workpiece attached to the ball. Finally, you can do some awsome pieces
of eccentric turning between centers.

What I'm really saying is that it is not necessary to purchase one of
the eccentric chucks on the market to do eccentric turning. They do
make the task a bit easier and less fiddley. The $350 Escoulen Chuck
is a awsome piece of work and allows you to do many things, giving two
methods of eccentricity in in single chuck.

Fred Holder
http://www.fholder.com

Thanks, Fred... very concise and helpful.. maybe you should do this for a living


My fear is that I'd blow the $300 to $400 and the chuck would end up being an
expensive shop decoration..

I think I need to play with my Oneway Talon a bit and maybe a jig or 2 and see
if I even LIKE eccentric turning...

mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

Hello Mac,

Another experiement you can do that will give you the effects of the
Escoulen original chuck is to make up one of my Ball Chucks from a PVC
Compression Fitting, fit a round ball in it, turn a flat spot on the
surface of the ball, inbed a good screw from the back side to make it
into a screw chuck. This will allow you to do most of the things the
Escoulen Chuck will do. It will just be made of wood and plastic and
will not stand up as well as the Escoulen chuck made of steel. If you
don't have instructions for making one of my ball chucks, e-mail me at
and I'll e-mail you a pdf of the
instructions. The main thing one needs is a good imagination and then
the sky is the limit for what you can do with these chucks. I'm a bit
short on imagination, but long on problem solving.

Fred Holder
http://www.fholder.com/Woodturning/woodturn.htm

In article om,
Fred Holder wrote:


Hello Ralph,

The Vicmarc booth in Portland was so franic with customers that I
barely spoke with anyone except Victor's wife and to ask permission
from Victor to use one of their VL-100's to turn a couple of Chinese
Balls, one of which I have to Victor's wife.

If they had their eccentric chuck at the show, I didn't see it. I did,
however, get an opportunity to see it on a computer screen when we
visited the Vicmarc plant last September, but Victor asked me not to
publicise it at that time. The design looked good and I made a couple
of suggestions for what I thought would be imporvements. If it is on
the market, I would guess it will be an excellent chuck as all of
their products are very well made.

The only place I actually saw one was attached to a Robust in the CSUSA
booth. It did look, impressive!!

--
--------------------------------------------------------
Personal e-mail is the n7bsn but at amsat.org
This posting address is a spam-trap and seldom read
RV and Camping FAQ can be found at
http://www.ralphandellen.us/rv

Yep! those angels sure can hit. :-)

--
God bless and safe turning
Darrell Feltmate
Truro, NS
http://aroundthewoods.com
http://roundopinions.blogspot.com

"mac davis" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 05 Aug 2007 17:28:56 GMT, "Darrell Feltmate"
wrote:

Sorry, Mac. I did not get any pictures but I will do it again first chance
and take some.

In one of your abundant periods of idle time, right Darrell?

You were in my thoughts this morning as I banged another finger while
sanding an
angel wing bowl...


mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

Fred Holder wrote:

snip

Finally, you can do some awsome pieces
of eccentric turning between centers.

Not sure about awesome, but you can do some strange looking
stuff using multi-centers "between centers. Being able to visualize
what you want and then figure out the centers necessary to do it
is beyond my visualization capabilities - so far. Probably if I did
20 or so pieces AND documented the procedure for each one
I might be able to "see" and predict the details for going from
desired results and the centers to get there. Here's a technique
I've been working on to "see" things.

http://web.hypersurf.com/~charlie2/T...Turning14.html

And here's the Ball and Chuck method for trying the one type of
turning the Escoulen ball chuck is designed to do.

http://web.hypersurf.com/~charlie2/T...urning14B.html

What I'm really saying is that it is not necessary to purchase one of
the eccentric chucks on the market to do eccentric turning. They do
make the task a bit easier and less fiddley. The $350 Escoulen Chuck
is a awsome piece of work and allows you to do many things, giving two
methods of eccentricity in in single chuck.

The Ball and Chuck method only gets you one of the two methods of
chucked eccentric turning. The Escoulen chuck adds moving the
drive/ chuck end center off center.

Play with this stuff. Fun - but for me at least - unpredictable.

charlie b

"Darrell Feltmate" wrote in message
news:cWXti.65670$Io4.58961@edtnps89...
Yep! those angels sure can hit. :-)


You ever sell any, Darrell? Everybody handles 'em, nobody buys here. Some
are pretty neat, too. I end up giving them away. Haven't made one in over
a year.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d1...f-4-inch-B.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d1...e/ff519f4b.jpg

Putting a dark background behind light wood, light behind dark wood helps
keep your knuckles away from the edges. That, and keeping your hand behind
the rest!

On Tue, 07 Aug 2007 15:02:34 GMT, "George" wrote:


"Darrell Feltmate" wrote in message
news:cWXti.65670$Io4.58961@edtnps89...
Yep! those angels sure can hit. :-)


You ever sell any, Darrell? Everybody handles 'em, nobody buys here. Some
are pretty neat, too. I end up giving them away. Haven't made one in over
a year.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d1...f-4-inch-B.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d1...e/ff519f4b.jpg

Putting a dark background behind light wood, light behind dark wood helps
keep your knuckles away from the edges. That, and keeping your hand behind
the rest!

George.. I can't answer for Darrell, but I've sold very few wing bowls...
OTOH, being a big fan of keeping my knuckles and not tearing too many h&l disks
off the drill, I've evolved my wings to a shorter, more rounded type of thing
and have sold quite a few as "change dishes"..
The nice thing about them is that the wood is free... I turn them out of the
bark section that gets cut off the bottom of a log when cutting bowl blanks..
I used to make my 4 cuts and end up with 2 blanks and 3 firewood pieces, now the
pith cut is the only firewood..


mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

George
I sell a few. They sit on the craft tables with either business cards or
wrapped candies on them. People seem to buy them for the fancy card holders
or candy dish more than as angel wing bowls.

--
God bless and safe turning
Darrell Feltmate
Truro, NS
http://aroundthewoods.com
http://roundopinions.blogspot.com

"mac davis" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 07 Aug 2007 15:02:34 GMT, "George" wrote:


"Darrell Feltmate" wrote in message
news:cWXti.65670$Io4.58961@edtnps89...
Yep! those angels sure can hit. :-)


You ever sell any, Darrell? Everybody handles 'em, nobody buys here.
Some
are pretty neat, too. I end up giving them away. Haven't made one in
over
a year.

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d1...f-4-inch-B.jpg

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d1...e/ff519f4b.jpg

Putting a dark background behind light wood, light behind dark wood helps
keep your knuckles away from the edges. That, and keeping your hand
behind
the rest!

George.. I can't answer for Darrell, but I've sold very few wing bowls...
OTOH, being a big fan of keeping my knuckles and not tearing too many h&l
disks
off the drill, I've evolved my wings to a shorter, more rounded type of
thing
and have sold quite a few as "change dishes"..
The nice thing about them is that the wood is free... I turn them out of
the
bark section that gets cut off the bottom of a log when cutting bowl
blanks..
I used to make my 4 cuts and end up with 2 blanks and 3 firewood pieces,
now the
pith cut is the only firewood..


mac

Please remove splinters before emailing

"Darrell Feltmate" wrote in message
news:dF2ui.96647$xk5.83392@edtnps82...
George
I sell a few. They sit on the craft tables with either business cards or
wrapped candies on them. People seem to buy them for the fancy card
holders or candy dish more than as angel wing bowls.

I've displayed them with a batch of silk flowers and pinecones - centerpiece
stuff. Or, if you turn a bit of a lip on the bottom, a holder for a votive
light. Oh well, they're a fun turning, but they sell as poorly as "hollow
forms" here.