Thursday, March 29, 2018

4-Jaw Chuck

Some hobbyist machinists love it - and others hate it. And, I guess, it is fair to say that those who hate it have actually never got around to learning how to centre it properly. Which is rather a shame because there are countless YouTube videos out there dealing with the subject. 
Our Schaublin 102 is still somewhere south of Suez, but the 4-jaw chuck arrived separately this week. It was a 'non-catalogue' accessory supplied by Rohm. This was a bit of surprise - after all, Schaublin is a work-holding specialist themselves. However, the 4-jaw chucks are a much different beast than collets.  
Rohm is a German family business which specialises in chucks. They've been making lathe chucks since 1909 and they are regarded as the world's leading chuck manufacturer. And that's all they do. (Have you noticed that the O in Rohm is actually a chuck?). This German company is very proud of the fact that they can manufacture work-holding pieces up to 4 metres in diameter and weighing 25 tons! When it comes to production capacity: Rohm can assemble 92,000 chucks in 5 days. 
There is something mighty powerful about German manufacturing - and we are proud to have a piece of it in our Sydney workshop.

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