How to hold a small leg in the lathe?

[hawkeye10]

I am trying to find a way to hold a small leg for a breakfast tray while you eat in bed. The legs are 8.5" long and 1.125" square with a 1.250" long mortise in the leg. Right now I am using a Nova G3 chuck with the spigot jaws. It barely opens enough to hold the leg. The problem I am having with this method is the jaws are making marks on the leg. I can't use a screw because of the mortise. It's Christmas and I am between a rock and a hard place. Here is the lathe I am using.

 

[HandyDan]

Most often furniture legs are turned between centers using a spur drive in the head stock.

 

[lew]

Are the spigot jaws the only ones you have?

[Steve Krumanaker]

Do you have a face plate? if so, you can make a pocket to hold the end you're trying to hold with the spigot jaws. Make it a snug fit and attach it to your faceplate. The tailstock will keep pressure to hold the leg in place.

 

Steve

[hawkeye10]

3 hours ago, lew said:

Are the spigot jaws the only ones you have?

No, I have two more but they won't fit.

[hawkeye10]

5 hours ago, HandyDan said:

Most often furniture legs are turned between centers using a spur drive in the head stock.

 

Dan, I was going to see if it's okay to use the spur drive with only three spurs in the wood? The quarter inch mortice comes out the end of the leg. I think it would be okay because the leg is so short (8.5") and so light but there is so much I don't know about turning. 

[hawkeye10]

1 hour ago, Steve Krumanaker said:

Do you have a face plate? if so, you can make a pocket to hold the end you're trying to hold with the spigot jaws. Make it a snug fit and attach it to your faceplate. The tailstock will keep pressure to hold the leg in place.

 

Steve

Steve, yes I do and I started working on doing what you suggested yesterday and quit because I thought I could use the spigot jaws.

[lew]

25 minutes ago, hawkeye10 said:

No, I have two more but they won't fit.

I was thinking you could make an adapter for the larger jaws to hold the smaller piece

[hawkeye10]

I see what you are talking about, Lew. It's kinda like what Steve was talking about. I sure have got a lot of very good help on here tonight and I thank all of you.

[lew]

14 minutes ago, hawkeye10 said:

I see what you are talking about, Lew. It's kinda like what Steve was talking about. I sure have got a lot of very good help on here tonight and I thank all of you.

Yes. Using the chuck gives you a little fudge factor over the face plate

[Gerald]

As Steve said but use the chuck and make a jamb chuck. Wood will be held in the jamb by pulling up the tail stock . You would still be turning between centers but do not have as much risk to split the small end of the workpiece. 

[lew]

This was my thought-

 

The 2 piece (white) would fit into the slightly opened jaws of the chuck and then insert the leg, tighten the chuck

[hawkeye10]

On 12/11/2018 at 9:54 AM, lew said:

This was my thought-

 

The 2 piece (white) would fit into the slightly opened jaws of the chuck and then insert the leg, tighten the chuck

 

Edited December 19, 2018 by hawkeye10
Everything I typed went away

[lew]

58 minutes ago, hawkeye10 said:

 

That has happened to me on occasion. Try opening a new post and sometimes it will remember what you typed 

[hawkeye10]

8 hours ago, lew said:

That has happened to me on occasion. Try opening a new post and sometimes it will remember what you typed 

Lew, it looks like John would fix this. It doesn't happen on other forums.
 

[lew]

The software, this site uses, is supposed to cache everything you write. I'll add @John Morris to this thread and hopefully he can check it out.

[hawkeye10]

 

Lost it all again. 

[lew]

1 hour ago, hawkeye10 said:

 

Lost it all again. 

Try doing just a test and let's see if we can figure it out.

[hawkeye10]

Try doing just a test and let's see if we can figure it out. 

 

It's working fine now. I don't understand.

 

[lew]

I read your post in the “Bugs and Issues” forum. Maybe I misunderstood what you said but you indicated you were hitting Enter to add a picture. To add pictures, you should place the blinking cursor where you want the picture in your text and then click on the image you want to insert. The image needs to be uploaded prior to this process.