Advantages of the Sure-Grip® Lever-Operated, Counterbalanced Power Chucks

Hardinge Inc. manufactures a premiere line of lever-operated, counter-centrifugal and dynamically balanced Sure-Grip® Power Chucks. The lever-operated design of the Hardinge chuck has several advantages over the wedge-type design most commonly found on low cost, non-counterbalanced chucks that are supplied with the initial purchase of many chuck-style lathes. In the Hardinge lever-operated system, the drawtube is connected to the jaws through a pivoting lever that is mounted on pins inside the chuck body. The lever system has reduced friction and increased mechanical advantage compared to a wedge-operated chuck for a given draw bar pressure. In other words, a lever will always have greater actual gripping power at the jaws than a wedge-operated chuck, for any given draw bar pressure. The lever system also has reduced internal bearing surface over the wedge-operated closure, making it less sensitive to lack of lubrication. The greater efficiency of the design results in reduced wear on the operating cylinder, dramatically increasing component life. For this reason, a lever-operated chuck system (chuck and operating cylinder) will usually have a longer life than that of a wedge-operated system. In the Hardinge counterbalanced chuck design, weights are incorporated into the actuating levers of the chucks at the opposite end of the fulcrum or pivot-point of the jaws. Centrifugal force acts upon this weight just as it does on the top jaws. However, since the weight is at the opposite side of the lever from the top jaws, the upward thrust generated counteracts some of the jaw force loss. Thus, the counterbalanced lever design has substantially more gripping force at high RPM than that of a non-counterbalanced style.

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