Vacuum Chucking

Woodturners are becoming more aware of the advantages of holding the work piece on the lathe with a vacuum setup. When reverse turning a bowl no marks are left on the work piece and natural edge bowls can be held easily. In order to set up a vacuum system on your lathe you need three main ingredients:

1. A way to get the vacuum to pull through the lathe headstock spindle. Your lathe headstock spindle must have a hole going through it. We offer the Rotary Adaptor, the E-Z Vacuum Adaptor or the Hold Fast Adaptor for this purpose.

2. A fixture with a gasket that the vacuum pulls through to hold the work piece. We offer the Oneway Drum Chucks or Hold Fast Vacuum Chuck heads for this purpose or the seal making kit can be combined with MDF and PVC pipe to make your own fixture.

3. A vacuum source. We sell a high quality vacuum pump made by Gast. If you have a compressor available, Hold Fast makes a Vacuum Generator that uses the airflow to create a vacuum.