Special tasks require special tools. I have a lot of workholding options for my lathe but nothing for clamping special parts like thin washers or disks. So I came up with the idea of making myself an 80mm split jaw chuck for my Mini Lathe. This type of lathe chucks is often found on bigger industrial or CNC machines. As far as I know there is no 80mm version of a split jaw chuck available on the market, so I had to make my own.

So I'm modifying in this video an off the shelf 3 jaw chuck into a split jaw version. That means that there are base jaws on which you can screw on all different kinds of top jaws. In my case I made aluminium top jaws which can be adapted to clamp very thin parts.
So in general this type of chuck is extremely versatile and can sometimes be the only option to clamp special or odd shaped parts.

Thanks to: www.ragotzkygaetje.de

Link to the chuck I used:https://www.spannsysteme-shop.de/drei...

Many thanks to the tool supplier Ragotzky+Gätjen for sending me the chuck and the spare block jaws for free and supporting my work.

Consider their webshop for your next tool purchase: www.ragotzkygaetje.de

I hope you enjoy this video and found it interesting.

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