A good, precision-made lathe chuck can be very expensive. You can save some real money by buying an import chuck, but as with most things, you get what you pay for.
In this BlondiHacks video, Quinn runs through what you can do to clean and optimize a new, cheap chuck (or an old used one that might need some loving care). This mainly involves taking the chuck apart, cleaning out the machining dust, de-buring it (something they skip with cheap chuck manufacture), and giving it a good oiling.
Someone in the video comments had a great tip. After you reassemble a freshly oiled chuck, it is going to spatter oil the first time you spin it up. This maker recommends affixing a paper bag over the chuck and running it at high speed to catch all of the extra oil as it flies off.
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