Finally got a lathe

Aries- said:
A gunsmith is not going to have any use for softjaws. Going to be turning between centers, a 3 jaw for fast jobs. Or a 4 jaw chuck for bigger.
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That's pretty much what I've been saying too.

But he seems to want everybody to have to tool up as if they were doing a jobber shop's needs, before they are allowed to get going.

Not a practical set of needs, as far as almost anyone that is reading about lathe work here may ever need.

Cheers
Trev
 
trevj said:
That's pretty much what I've been saying too.

But he seems to want everybody to have to tool up as if they were doing a jobber shop's needs, before they are allowed to get going.

Not a practical set of needs, as far as almost anyone that is reading about lathe work here may ever need.

Cheers
Trev
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The place I worked as a smith. Hourly rate was $40 an hour for customers. With an apprentice smith with tool and die making $12 an hour. And a head smith with military armorer training making around the $18 to $19 an hour. The profit margin isnt there to be spending the money on soft jaws that likely wont be used more than once.

Contouring barrels were done between centers, threading muzzles and chambers were done in a 4 jaw. Shotgun chokes done in a 3 jaw (safer little likelihood of crushing the barrel).

There arent many smiths out there with real training in machining. The other apprentices thT have go e through there have had no machinist training. So its disappointing.

While I worked at Elcan I had to turn many soft jaws. Not a job for people with just a basic idea of how to run a lathe.
 
I make my own soft jaws from material I have laying around, I use them over and over again , I don't buy stuff if I don't have too , I'm just spoiled because I will run 10 sets of blank jaws at a time in my mill when I have the time, but I can see how maybe working on a barrel may require a 4 jaw since they are probably not concentric to the chamber, it's more then a hobby for me it's a business
 
al1460 said:
https://tradesecrets.alberta.ca/ILMOrder/order.html

Here is a link to buy the Alberta apprenticeship modules. I still look at my millwright ones sometimes even as a j man
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Thx, I also ardered the NAIT MAC text books, theres just no way I can do that course the way they have it set up with the days. I'll just have to lear this like I've learned everything else, read lots and make mistakes, #### sticks with a guy better that way.
 
A few sets of soft jaws to cover the sizes most gunsmiths would use is fairly minimal compared to the amount of time fussing with a independent chuck or shims. The OP spent the money on the lathe to learn how to use it. If he can learn the advantages of advanced tooling sooner he can progress much faster. Plus, as wood800 pointed out it's a pretty good project (if you have a mill) to learn the fundamentals of machining.

I don't think the OP bought the machine to start a business. If it was purely from a dollars perspective he would have got someone to do the work for him!
 
gagreflex said:
A few sets of soft jaws to cover the sizes most gunsmiths would use is fairly minimal compared to the amount of time fussing with a independent chuck or shims. The OP spent the money on the lathe to learn how to use it. If he can learn the advantages of advanced tooling sooner he can progress much faster. Plus, as wood800 pointed out it's a pretty good project (if you have a mill) to learn the fundamentals of machining.

I don't think the OP bought the machine to start a business. If it was purely from a dollars perspective he would have got someone to do the work for him!
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If you know what you are doing a 4 jaw takes less time than properly turning soft jaws.
The other problem with soft jaws the aluminum will come off on a parkerized type finish. And the barrel wont be held straight if wrapped in masking tape. With a 4 jaw and shims I can wrap the barrel in masking tape to protect it from the hard jaws along with a shim and still get the bore dead center.
 
The other thing with soft jaws is that they are meant more for a production setting where you're doing a handful of parts that justifies the effort to make the soft jaws to suit. Mostly gunsmiths and home hobby types are doing one to four items of any one thing. That hardly justifies the effort needed to machine up a set of soft jaws.

I've only once ran into a project where I was making up 10 or 11 of a "thing" where I'd have found it to be worthwhile to machine a set of soft jaws if my chucks had the jaws that accept the soft jaw inserts. But they don't and I came up with a machined for the job "spud" ring that fit into the outside jaw set which gave me the repeatability I needed for that one job.
 
gagreflex said:
A few sets of soft jaws to cover the sizes most gunsmiths would use is fairly minimal compared to the amount of time fussing with a independent chuck or shims. The OP spent the money on the lathe to learn how to use it. If he can learn the advantages of advanced tooling sooner he can progress much faster. Plus, as wood800 pointed out it's a pretty good project (if you have a mill) to learn the fundamentals of machining.

I don't think the OP bought the machine to start a business. If it was purely from a dollars perspective he would have got someone to do the work for him!
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I think you don't really understand the concept of "soft jaws".

They don't come in sizes. They are simply soft mild steel or aluminium inserts that fit onto bases that fit into the scroll of the chuck. These inserts are then machined to suit the job at hand to support the pieces in a repeatable manner. So there's no sizes. There's just a variety of used lumps that can be re-machined a couple of more times until they aren't useful any more.
 
BCRider said:
I think you don't really understand the concept of "soft jaws".

They don't come in sizes. They are simply soft mild steel or aluminium inserts that fit onto bases that fit into the scroll of the chuck. These inserts are then machined to suit the job at hand to support the pieces in a repeatable manner. So there's no sizes. There's just a variety of used lumps that can be re-machined a couple of more times until they aren't useful any more.
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I'm pretty sure that is exactly what he said. make up a bunch of of soft jaws in different sizes, ie diameters, and simply trade out jaws as you change out jobs.
 
Blastattack said:
I'm pretty sure that is exactly what he said. make up a bunch of of soft jaws in different sizes, ie diameters, and simply trade out jaws as you change out jobs.
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You can't though, or you end up with accuracy comparable to a 3 jaw chuck.

You need to turn the chuck jaws to the correct size each time you install a set, if you want to see the benefit of them. It makes them a good idea for repeat work, but not as much for one at a time use.

Not much of a time saver if you have to do that, vs. just using a 4 jaw.

Cheers
Trev
 
wood800 said:
Aluminum jaws will never put a mark on your part
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Neither will a wrap of aluminum shim.

Six of one, half dozen of the other. Up till now, soft jaws have not supplanted a 4 jaw where guys are looking for a flexible solution.

In a perfect world, we'd have a complete collet set, and a bunch of emergency collets, and a half dozen different chucks (2,3,4, 6 jaw, scroll and independent, as well as combo chucks) and a selection of different size soft jaw blanks. But money always seems to be an issue. So, at the end of the day, most guys end up owning a 4 jaw chuck for the odd time they need more accuracy than just whacking it into a 3 jaw will provide.

Cheers
Trev
 
trevj said:
You can't though, or you end up with accuracy comparable to a 3 jaw chuck.

You need to turn the chuck jaws to the correct size each time you install a set, if you want to see the benefit of them. It makes them a good idea for repeat work, but not as much for one at a time use.

Not much of a time saver if you have to do that, vs. just using a 4 jaw.

Cheers
Trev
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I guess it really depends on the quality if the chuck. Cheap Chinese gets you pretty lame consistency, while real quality chucks will repeat within .001 or less. However, real quality on a "standard" sized chuck starts at about a grand and quickly goes up from there.
 
Soft jaws have to be numbered and always put back on the same spot, regardless of what chuck it is. I have a 6" set-tru PBA that was $1500 and its the worst effing chuck I got for repeatability.
Same should be done with the hard jaws, there's generally a location where they'll have less run out, number them and always put them back in the same place.

That said I see very little use one could have with soft jaws for gun related work when most factory and even custom parts are rarely concentric and shouldn't' be relied on the OD. Hard to beat a 4-jaw to get things " just the way you want ".
 
Blastattack said:
I guess it really depends on the quality if the chuck. Cheap Chinese gets you pretty lame consistency, while real quality chucks will repeat within .001 or less. However, real quality on a "standard" sized chuck starts at about a grand and quickly goes up from there.
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What you paid for the chuck and where it came from, sadly, are not always an indicator of quality. Judge each on their own merits! :)

I have used some really cheap, made in India chucks that a Chinese lathe user would safely consider looking down their nose at, through Chinese, American and British, Polish, Austrian, and Swiss chucks, and they all wear out eventually. Condition counts, and the condition it is in when you use it, trumps what quality it was when built.
Higher prices sometimes, but not always, get you a chuck that will last longer in an industrial setting. I'll throw Pratt-Burnerd chucks out there as an example of a chuck that, while a pretty good product, has had the price run away from it's quality level.

The odds of ending up with a good part rests solely on the shoulders of the person standing in front of the machine.

Cheers
Trev
 
wood800 said:
Aluminum jaws will never put a mark on your part
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But aluminium jaws wear or swage/peen out with use unless they are well fitted soft jaws so they end up not being that viable. On the other hand a slip of aluminium or brass shim around the part and held in the 4 jaw won't have this same issue.

Certainly all you've said in this thread is valid. I think that my opposition to some of your ideas is simply based on the fact that YOU are doing the work in a production or semi production manner as opposed to the one off situation in a home shop. As Trev keeps saying there's lots of other ways when we are only doing a one off setup that simply make more sense in both money and time.

In your case you are also using the machines to make a living. So the cost of a number of the GOOD chucks and options for them can be passed on to the customers over time. Also for YOU time is money both in your case and for the customer. So options that cost money but speed up the work are a very valid tradeoff.

But in a home shop hobby setup this simply isn't the case. Thousand dollar 3 jaw chucks are not going to be an option for many of us. So we end up learning to true up a 4 jaw pretty quickly due to the amount of practice. Perhaps you've simply been working in a shop/career scene for so long that you've forgotten what it costs when this is only a hobby.
 
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