Fixtures and Chucks for Woodturning: Everything You Need to Know to Secure Wood on Your Lathe
The tagline for the book "Fixtures and Chucks for Woodturning" says, "Everything you need to know to secure wood on your lathe" and I don't think that is an exaggeration. What more can there be when you have section headings of:   Drive Centers and Live Centers  Faceplates and Screw Centers  Scroll Chucks  Handy Shopmade Chucks  Jam Chucks  Collets and Mandrels  Cole Jaws, Doughnut Chucks, Longworth Chucks  Vacuum and Vacuum Systems  Vacuum Chucks  Steady Rests  Turning Projects, and  Assembled Pieces This book provides not only information on the above topics along with a multitude of photos but, also, is intermixed with projects such as turning an egg or a goblet with a lid. If you're wondering about turning punky wood or attaching to end grain, well that information is in here too. Fantastic!   My Ratings of The Book Layout and Appearance: Good balance of photos, how-to instructions, projects. Thumbs Up! Instructions: Clear information and instructions Thumbs Up! Projects Selection: An unexpected bonus in this book. Great. Inspiration: Lots of information to open the door to creative turnings. Thumbs Up! Overall: Thumbs Up!Turners tend to get comfortable with learned methods, repeating a standard chucking process with ease until the day they run upon a situation where the tried and true won't work. I've been turning for a few years now, and every once in a while I have to mutter, "Now, how am I going to do that?" Doc Green pretty well has that question covered, and I believe anything beyond the realm of his new book may fall into the category of wild and crazy ideas.      Doc divides the book into twelve sections, all well-illustrated with clear photographs showing what he's talking about. He covers drive centers and live centers, faceplates and screw centers, scroll chucks, shop made and jam chucks, collets and mandrels, cole jaws, doughnut chucks and Longworth chucks, vacuum systems and their chucks, steady rests, and several turning projects to practice methods he has described.      Every method presented carries with it the necessary cautions about what not to do as well as how to do it best. He explains leverage and torque, how a turning tool puts stress on the workpiece, and how best to prepare a blank for mounting on the lathe. The really nice thing about this book is that every method is presented with alternatives, so there are a variety of ways to solve a given problem. There are also lots of shop-built jigs and aids included.      Unless you've solved every problem in handling wood on the lathe, Doc's book will be invaluable for enlightening each new challenge along a woodturner's path of experience.Fixtures and Chucks for Woodturning by Clarence Green covers both commercially produced and shop-made chucks, centers and faceplates. In addition to the projects for making your own shop helpers for turning projects, there are some projects that incorporate the use of these wood holders to create turned items. Fixtures and Chucks for Woodturning (Fox Chapel Publishing, ISBN 978-1-56523-519-9) is priced at $22.95.The title should be enough for even the expert woodturner to get excited about. How many times have turners fretted about ways to mount particular pieces? Author Green may in fact have the answer in this excellent and beautifully illustrated book. Green shows you how to make some excellent steadies as well as some interesting and novel PVC vacuum chucks. The author takes you through all of the standard chucks and shows how to make them work better for your turning. This is a great reference book that won't lie around collecting dust.