Home made Screw chucks for woodturning

Woodturner's screwchucks

This shows three screwchucks made from wood. Two are shaped for turning wooden fruit.

• Turn up a suitable disc of hard wood to fit your chuck jaws or to fit a small faceplate.
• Fit to the chuck and carefully drill through a small central hole for the screw
• The hole should be perfectly central if you want an accurate screwchuck
• The screw can be any wood screw or sheet metal screw but it must be long so most of it is tightly held in the screwchuck body
• Fit the screw from the back and prevent the screw from turning in use as shown below

There are many ways to prevent the screw from turning when you use the screwchuck. You could glue it in with superglue or epoxy or you could use a very long screw with most of it's length screwed very tightly into the body of your screwchuck. This picture shows another method which involves a modest amount of metalwork. I have modified a penny washer - a large washer with a small hole. I filed out the centre hole to form a slot and ground down two flats on the screw head to fit. The lower screw anchors the washer in place. You have to recess the washer into the wood if you want the screwchuck to fit onto the flat face of a faceplate.