Lathe soft jaws, money saver

[thehomeengineer]

Hi Extropic
I am guessing you are based in the US?
In the UK manual lathe chucks come with two sets of hard jaws with the scroll machined into the back of them, so to change from internal to external jaws the complete set of jaws are removed and replaced with the second set (in the correct order to ensure the chuck runs true). So in the case of the soft jaws they are also one piece steel construction and just replace the standard jaws. These are then machined as required but this can get very expensive. So I adopted the US style of master jaw so I could bolt my own jaws to the chuck. The nice thing is you can make the sacrificial jaws out of any materail to suit your aplication ie aluminium, steel, plastic etc.
I beleive the US prefere internal, external jaws which bolt to a master plate with the scroll machined into the back and the jaws bolted to the front?
I hope this has answered your questions if not please send another email
The Home Engineer