hey guys Adam Savage here with not exactly a 1-day bill but more like one
day shop maintenance I came into the shop this morning with some plans to
make some stuff and then I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos of
people restoring old machine slates and mills and I decided to take apart the
self-centering reversible three-jaw chuck for my mill and make it a little
bit better basically you know I hadn't done that in ever I've had this thing
for nine eight or nine years and I wanted to take it apart and take out all
the swarf and the dirt and everything and put it back together so that's what
these time lapses show this is me pulling off the spindle lock chuck head
putting it on my table and slowly starting to inspect each of the parts I
also not having any of the institutional knowledge about how to take one of these
apart and put it back together I mean I watch youtube videos but frankly for a
lot of these things the positioning of the various components of a lathe Chuck
can be really really persnickety and specific and if you get it wrong whoa
but I do
so you can see me here pulling out that itching pen and etching in numbers on
each of the spindle lock pins so they go back exactly where they belonged I don't
know that that was necessary it's very plausibly overkill but again I'd rather
overkill than underkill
once I had the pins and all the pieces Nold out on the table then I started
reassembling but first I ran an India stone on a lot of the flat surfaces just
- this is not - actually sand down the surfaces it's mostly to actually take
down any burrs or dings a lot of these parts and pieces the main bodies of them
are made of cast iron which is fabulous for reference surfaces but it it's soft
and if you ding it with a with something that ding can actually throw it off the
next time you try and and put it together
you can actually see me here adding some grease and then removing grease you can
see me pulling out my grease gun and adding some grease and then immediately
starting to scrape away grease this is because I thought maybe I should just
grease it because I couldn't get these the three side pins out these guys here
and then I figured out how to get them out and I realized I should clean out
all the grease I should clean out every last bit of grease in case there's any
dirt or grit in there and then put in some new grease reassemble it put in a
nice coat of some machine oil and put it back together and before putting it back
together I like took each part and ran it with
some 400 grit sandpaper just to clean it up and make it look a little nicer I
went down to the bottom of every single hole and wire brushed out everything
it's just like once I had the the naked body of just the chuck shell just
cleaning it out with a rag feels really
good
so once I once I started reassembling it then it was time to put it back on the
lathe and indicate it in and that's actually I'm using a thing like this
here this is a lever indicator for just making sure I have concentricity and it
I spent about an hour assembling and reassembling the lathe chuck and i-i-i
at first when I started out it was about four thousandths out of round which is
way that's terrible I got it down to about three tenths 310 thousandths out
of round which is I believe the acceptable range for this Chuck however
to be honest I might I might want to invest in a better three jaw Chuck this
is the one that lathe came with and it might be nice to have a better one just
say it this kind of project this sort of take
the thing apart it's it's one of the ways in which again I take the things
that I utilize and I put them in my head right so now I've seen and touched and
cleaned all the internal pieces of this Chuck I have laid my hands on them and
thus I've laid my head on the light I've laid my brain on them and so now it's
operation there's nothing about it that's mysterious to me and there's this
way in which were separated from the things that are mysterious to us right
so before I took it apart I kind of knew what was inside but I hadn't seen it
therefore it was like a black box and if I had arond operation I I didn't know
how to deal with that or I didn't have a clear idea how to deal with that moment
once I've taken it apart and put it back together well now I do have a much
clearer idea about its repair and its maintenance and its upkeep and its
operation someday I'll finish but maybe not maybe
there's just an endless number of tools to connect with and wrap my head around
and and make tighter and in a way this is something that I've always done
I I love telling stories about how when I first get toys even when I was like 10
or 11 years old I get a toy and I start to make it better you know I'd add some
black around the wheels or I take a silver pen or I take it apart and put it
back together make it a little tighter I still do that that's it's a lovely
operation and it's a nice meditation and it you know puts me in mind to to be
more in my shop well there you go I hope these time lapses are I hope those time
lapses were relaxing and soothing they the operation itself was certainly
soothing for me thank you guys for joining me for this one day shop with
maintenance Cheers