Lathe Chuck

A lathe chuck is mounted on the headstock of a lathe and can be actuated manually or under power. Typically, it is used to hold a rotating workpiece, such as a bar, and some can also hold irregularly shaped objects that lack radial symmetry.Chucks clamp onto a workpiece with jaws, or steel inserts arranged in a circular pattern on the chuck face. Jaws move in a spiral to tighten around a workpiece or tooling, and are tightened or loosened with the help of a chuck key or hex wrench. Due to its smaller size, a drill chuck can be tightened by hand.