Historical Straightline Chuck

A Straightline Chuck is used to hold objects so they don't rotate; rather using the spindle's vertical rotation to move the object vertically, and allow for ornamenting them that way. The object being held:

• moves up and down (along the Y axis), and
• rocks back and forth (the X axis), but
• does not rotate around the lathe's spindle drive axis (the Z axis).

Current-day ones are usually built with an oblique chuck integrated into the device. This is particularly useful when making ornamentation on cylinders like pens, or on long, flat objects like bracelets.

Lindow Machine Works makes a very nice one that has even been used on an MDF rose engine lathe.

This video from Frédéric Verschoore shows a straightline chuck in use. This is around 13:00 minutes into the video, so it is set to jump ahead to that.

These videos are from David Lindow showing the straightline chuck on the Lindow-White rose engine lathe.