This is a off topic from the discussion about making collet chucks run more accurately, but has anyone here ever made a Master-and-Slave* chuck?? This is a homemade solution for precision holding of tools that I read about in Tubal Cain's wonderful book, "Workholding in the Lathe," Number 15 of the Workshop Practice Series.
This book was published 37 years ago in 1986, and the author called the master-and-slave chuck "totally forgotten" even then, so it must be practically lost to history by now. (The name retrieved no hits for me on Google).??
But a master-and-slave chuck has several advantages. It's homemade and fairly simple to make.? It consists of a master chuck that attaches to the lathe spindle, plus various slave chucks that lock into the master chuck and hold the tools (or occasionally the work).
Most important: a master-and-slave chuck system has ZERO RUNOUT, because you bore the holes for the tools with the chuck on the lathe where they will be used, so all errors cancel out.
The master chuck either threads onto the spindle or attaches with bolts, such as on Chinese minilathes.? And the slave chucks can be used in the master chucks of several different lathes. (Theoretically, they have zero runout only on the lathe they were made on, but that shouldn't result in significant error, because you also bore the hole in each master chuck on the spindle of its lathe).
I've attached two photos of pages from the book that should explain well enough? how to make it.?
I realize I'm plagiarizing Workholding in the Lathe by sharing this, but I hope that will do good in the long run by encouraging more people to buy this wonderful little book, which is still very much available. In it, Tubal Cain (the writer in Model Engineer magazine, not the YouTube creator) tells you almost anything you could want to know about turning between centers, using face plates, using (and cleaning and repairing) chucks, unusual checks like the master-and-slave chuck, steady rests, and collets. Finally (although it's a bit off topic) he ends with a chapter on lathe alignment, which is the best information I've ever seen on that subject. All in 112 rather entertaining pages.
*NOTE: I recognize that the name master-and-slave chuck may be offensive to some here because our sensitivity to racial issues has advanced at least somewhat from when this book was written. But apparently similar terminology is currently used in the audio industry, where it gets far more exposure, but no one has found a better alternative name. Therefore I've continued to use it.?
Mike Taglieri?
