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Originally Posted by Cory
Even if you stack two pieces and cut them on a vertical bandsaw that doesn't mean the cuts are actually straight. Anyone who is cutting any quantities greater than 2-3 of barstock or tube to go into a mill or lathe would be much better off with a horizontal from a cut quality, squareness, and time standpoint.
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Sure but if you stack and bolt 2 or more plates to the surface of a sacrificial plate on a mill that usually doesn't matter.
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I'm referring to a 3 jaw self centering chuck. If you are only clamping onto say 1/4" of length on the part you can easily end up with the part skewed in the jaws. You need to be clamping onto substantially more to guarantee that the stock is coaxial to the jaws (at least without tapping it into alignment).
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As a matter of practice I usually try to run an indicator (coaxial, reference object, edge finder, or dial test) against anything I put in a lathe chuck. Either on the outside diameter or the inside diameter where that is applicable. I've worked on too many saws that wouldn't cut straight enough I could trust them. For example a cheap Chinese horizontal bandsaw with no hydraulic down feed even under proper tension might not cut straight from the pressure angle of the blade changing from the weight of saw assembly around the blade. This becomes less an issue on that same saw if you put a hydraulic downfeed retrofit on it like I did in my home shop (it's a surplus pneumatic piston rigged with hydraulic fluid).