Well, the 4 jaw chuck arrived yesterday – it’s huge! It’s a bit thicker than expected – it’s a cylinder 4″ in diameter and almost 3″ thick. It’s mostly steel, so it weighs almost 10 pounds. It came packed in styrofoam and machine oil (unlike the lathe that was covered in sticky packing grease). I ordered a 4 1/2″ diameter round aluminum plate (an inch thick, give or take) from Online Metals to make the backplate. It’s slated to arrive on Monday, and Mike’s gonna help me with the machining.

Our choreography for the North Atlantic Dance Championships is coming along well. If you’ve got a good name for our dance group, send me email (nothing too cheesy, please – we’re all too good at coming up with those kinds of names ourselves).