I've been turning some stoppers recently, in a variety of woods. The two I've turned out of English Walnut have both become stuck on the bottle stopper chuck. I think the cause is the extra screwing in caused by the turning process.
I'm looking at alternative ideas to remove the stopper from the chuck. The first one I destroyed by turning to eliminate the friction point. I've got ideas to eliminate this problem in the future, but no great ones on how to remove the current sample.
Ideas?
What kind of chuck? Is it the one with a flat on it with a little roller to cause expansion. This is what I use and I just lock the spindle and twist it back and forth while pulling. Watch your elbow if you have a live center on the tailstock. I found that knocking off the sharp end edges of the roller with a diamond hone helps keep it from digging in. I don't turn bottle stoppers anymore but use the chuck for turning Christmas tree ornaments.
This is a chuck designed for bottle stoppers.
As seen here:
Thanks. I'll give that a try. It's been "resting" on the chuck for a couple of days, maybe that will have eased the "stuck".
But it didn't work. Maybe I'll get the strap wrench and it'll work better.
I have had this happens a few times. The best method i found is to put the chuck/stopper in the freezer for about 1/2 hour. then use the strap wrench if necessary to remove it. (The metal will shrink a little more than the wood from the cold loosening it up)
Be aware though that the strap wrench will probably ruin the finished surface of the stopper.
Once you have it off, take a lid from a coffee can and cut yourself a washer. It's thin enough not to throw off the chuck, and will prevent the wood from locking up onto the screw chuck again. I use washers like that to prevent various adaptors from getting stuck also. (I have one lathe with a 1 1/4 x 8 tpi, and another with 1 x 8 tpi spindles)
You can purchase washers for this purpose, but the coffee can lids work fine and are free!
Cool. I was going to create a wooden washer and see how that worked.
The freezing did not work. Time to try and part it off near the chuck, I guess.
Unless it's REALLY nice wood I'd just turn it off...
...Kevin
My skills might not be up to getting it off properly. I'd like to see if it will still function as a b/s.
interesting - no one suggested deceleration as the means to get it off. If you can hold the chuck with something (is it threaded? MT?) then you can smack the thing holding it into a vice, an anvil or something (making sure the stopper misses the object being smacked) - the sudden deceleration will probably move it - if not, smack it harder - you can easily get well over
1000 g's (for a very short amount of time), and the shock will almost certainly free it.
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