Great Gripper

I used this Super Center Insert for the initial turning of large pieces of green wood. In the past, the standard spurs would drill deep into the green wood when the turning tool hit the high spots of the turned green wood. This extra large center had enough circumferential grip to overcome the resisting torque caused by the turning tool. This insert did exactly what I expected it to do. I could find nothing else on the market of this quality and at a reasonable price this tool.

A Sorely Needed Tool For Turning Large Spindles

Once the spindle gets much above 3" -- and I do turn 4x4 and even larger spindles on my lathe, the traditional 1" diameter 4-prong drive center seems an inadequate way to both support and impart rotational energy to the heavy wood. By using a 2" diameter drive center, I get both improved support and much better coupling between the headstock and the spindle. At first, I was a little leery of bearing that much weight in a chucked center until I realized just how heavy the bowl blanks I turn are as well. My only dissatisfaction with this product is that while it can be held directly in the #2 jaws of the chuck, when I have #3 jaws mounted, I'm faced with having to either change jaws or to grip the center by the tips of the chuck jaws. I've done both, but neither is a perfect solution because the tip-grip is somewhat hard to set up.