When I'm making the drop spindles I posted about earlier I have to turn a shaft. The shaft needs to be about 10-12" long and around 1//4" diameter. It's hard to turn something that long and and with that small of a diameter without getting a lot of whip. My solution is to start with a length about 3/8" square which will fit inside the bore on my spindle and to feed short lengths out through a chuck. Turn about 3", expose a little more and turn that. Problem is, I have no jaws that will grip that small of a piece. Solution, remove the jaws and use the chuck slides, which will close tightly enough to grip the shaft.

However, that gives rise to another issue. When turning these I'm often working reslly close to the chuck. Even being very careful it's easy to get a little too close. Here's a formula; spinning chuck+fingers=pain. A little nick here, a little scrape there, before you know it you've got blood on everything.

Well, eventually, I decided there has to be a better way and then I remembered, I've got a 3D printer. Spent a few minutes in FreeCad, drew this and sent it to my printer.

Doesn't look like much there but here it is on my chuck.

Pretty happy with myself over this one. It fits snugly enough to not work free but slides on and off easily. I lose about an eighth in thickness but that's not an issue. It completely protects my fingers and even acts as a dust cover for the chuck.

I'd say that fits into the genius category!! Nice!

So you're saying "through blood, sweat and tears" your creativity gene rose to challenge?😆 Great solution Steve. Thanks for passing it along

Where there's a will there's a way. You've sufficiently found the way. Nice!

You really found a fantastic solution. Been hearing so much about these printers but just cannot justify it.

6 hours ago, Gerald said:

Been hearing so much about these printers but just cannot justify it.

I would never advise someone buying a tool without knowing what they were going to use it for. That's funny because it's pretty much what I did when I bought mine. A friend showed me his and some of the things he'd printed and I got the bug. My first thought was dust collection adapters, it seems you can never buy the size you might need. I eventually figured out how to draw what I wanted and that's how it started. Since, I've used mine to make jigs, fixtures, toys, ornaments, household items, personalized gift tags, router templates, house numbers, garden fixtures, bird feeders, threads for turned boxes, and the list goes on and on. An added bonus has been the learning experience associated with modeling what I want to print and I know I've only scratched the surface of what's possible. Aside from what a person can draw themselves there are literally tens of thousands of free models online to download and use. I honestly believe 3d printers will become a fixture in most wood shops eventually. They are just that versatile.

30 minutes ago, Steve Krumanaker said:

I honestly believe 3d printers will become a fixture in most wood shops eventually. They are just that versatile.

My husband and I bought one with holiday sales and I love all the items we have been able to print - both for shop (a lot!!) and home.

10 hours ago, BB1 said:

My husband and I bought one with holiday sales and I love all the items we have been able to print - both for shop (a lot!!) and home.

That's exactly how I bought mine and have had exactly the experience.

33 minutes ago, Steve Krumanaker said:

That's exactly how I bought mine and have had exactly the experience.

There is a forum thread "3D printing in the shop" that might be of interest.🙂

Edited March 1Mar 1 by BB1

Just curious, what was the diameter of your chuck?

6 hours ago, Wichman3 said:

Just curious, what was the diameter of your chuck?

I made the guard to fit on a Supernova2 chuck which according to my calipers is 98.5mm diameter. Inside dimensions on the guard are drawn to be 99mm which gave me a pretty good fit. I'd be happy to share the stl if that's allowed here.