You decided to take the economical route to vacuum systems, you finally have suction, you’ve piped through the headstock and now you need chucks. Why not have a little fun on the lathe and turn a few chucks yourself?
For this you only want kiln-dried wood. I happened to have a block glued up of some exotics from an earlier project gone wrong (another story).
After glue up, turn your blocks into solid cylinders. Cut a tenon or recess on one end for clamling with a 4-jaw chuck. Drill the appropriate sized hole in the other end and tap as deep as possible with a Beall Tool Co. Lathe Spindle Tap.
Remove the piece and mount on the lathe spindle. Hollow out the cylinder until you near the lathe spindle. After squaring up the facing edge glue a piece of 1/8″ closed cell foam available an any craft store. After curing I left about 1/4 inch of excess foam on either edge.
Though an odd pick, I sealed the chucks with wood glue. When mounted to the spindle with a washer I made of the same foam material, it easily pulled a strong vacuum.
Below you see one on its first run with a block of maple.
