>I was just in the process of reversing a bowl on my Vicmarc 100 chuck when I noticed one of the 4 jaws was out of alignment. Three of the jaws come together but one is out of alignment by about 1/8". I checked my stronghold chuck and all 4 jaws come together equally on it.
Has anyone out there had this problem? Is there a way to fix it? Normally I would just blindly go to work taking the chuck apart but old age has made me a little wiser and I thought I'd ask the experts here first.
I know that my Vic chucks look good when brought together empty.
I just bought a small Nova and was suprised to find that the jaws when installed do not all get tight on their sides when closed. It appears the jaws are installed and then ground so they do not need to match.
>Thanks for the response Bill. I appreciate your taking the time to help.
The jaws are in the right order and the screws are seated correctly. (I just went downstairs and double checked). Each jaw appears to be the same size and shape so if they do not meet in the center I don't think they can be concentric -not a good thing to be for a scroll chuck I suspect.
Mine all come together correctly. I assume you'v e checked to see if all the jaws are exactly the same or have even switched the the jaws around to see if that helps. Do the inner jaws come together if you remove the outer jaws?
Have you ever had it apart. if you have you may have gotten one of the bottom jaws in with one rotation of the screw off. It's been a while since I had mine apart but I believe you just back out the little screw that acts as a stop to keep the jaws from coming out. Then crank them all out.
Putting them back in gets interesting but isn't hard. You rotate the T wrench to crank the spiral gear around and slide the jaw in until the beginning tooth of the spiral gear catches that tooth. Then you rotate the T wrench some more to bring the beginning tooth to the next opening for a jaw and slide that jaw in.
I don't remember if these jaws are numbered or not. They are on my metal lathe chucks but I can't remember if the Vicmarc is labeled or not. If they are just put them in order 1,2,3etc. If not I would mark them as I remove them.
>Bill, is this a brand new chuck, or have you used it some? I think that if you opened the jaws completely, one of the jaw slides could have had the screw disengage completely, then skip one thread before catching again, thereby creating the situation you describe. Sounds feasible, at least. Getting all of the jaw slides oriented correctly can be a finicky proposition. I have seen the guys at Craft Supplies do this when they have need to open a chuck up. They had to replace a new one of mine years ago for a really sticky operation. I know to trpoubleshoot it, they unscrewed the jaw slides, then had to realign them as they closed the jaws back up. I suppose if you're handy you might try to remedy this, but if it's new I'd send it back.
>John, Thanks for your help. I haven't tried switching the jaws around because they are numbered and match the corresponding inner jaw number. I will give it a try before I take the chuck apart- nothing to lose trying. Thanks for the instructions on reassembling, I'm sure they will come in handy.
