The aluminium jaws on the Taig 3 jaw are adequate and have the rather nice advantage that they can be machined – the whole idea of using aluminium. Soft steel jawa are available for most what might be called real chucks for the same reason. Aluminium has the advantage that it's less likely to mark work and it still grips as well as a chuck of this type would be expected to. Better than many would expect as a lot of leverage is available when it's tightened via the bars. I'd rate it as a very good light scroll chuck and as mentioned earlier if the machine it is on is turning dead true it's not that difficult to get it to hold items with better accuracy than many collets. The usual problem with machining chuck jaws is that errors in the machine make them bell mouthed – not a good idea at all. The jaws of a chuck need to be parallel to very fine limits.
It's 4 jaw is excellent and rated for the speed the lathe can run at. A few people have mounted them on mandrels so that they can be held in the 3 jaw chucks on larger lathes to save changing chucks.
I feel the main problem with the lathe is head distortion made worse because they also do riser blocks for it to increase the swing. These are really intended to allow people to lightly turn certain scale loco wheels but they also allow the lathe to handle much larger jobs. This for instance

An unfinished base for a spherometer turned from solid with cuts of a size that many probably wouldn't believe but I did grind up a tool just for this job. The rather heavy chamfers were put on by angling the same tool. It was held in place with a 5/16 bsw draw bar against the face plate. This work did distort the head a little but a near 3/4 inch cut using a form tool on one side of a V pulley about 3 to 4 in dia on mild steel under repair distorted it more than I would be prepared to put up with. The swarf was microscopically thin. It is possible to shim the heads up with aluminium foil to correct this but the roundness spec would not be so good as it was.
Apart from this
and not being able to see the lathe very often when there is that much aluminium swarf about they are pretty good lathes. If prepared as suggested in the instructions the slides can also be set on the tight side allowing silly cuts like the 3/4 inch one via a very very slow hand feed. Should add as far as using the rack for feeding on these lathes I didn't really have any problems. During training I wasn't allowed to use power feed for a long time so it was just a case of getting used to the rather small handle. No power feed – we were expected to be able to work on lathes with damaged feed mechanisms if asked to. It's also quicker in some ways as no need to mess with setting for various roughing and finishing cuts.
Centre distance is a serious limitation though but I would suspect that with the rest of it's kit that it is perfectly possible to completely make a certain size of scale loco on them. The vertical slide, chuck and lathe will easily handle 3/8" end mills at full depth if they are sharp. Peatol used to take them along to model engineering shows and turn mild steel bar away for demo's. If he still does I suspect many would be surprised by the size of cuts he takes.
My last use of the lathe was for this. The fit of the rear bearing on a Boxford is often too tight. I sold it mainly because of space problems but have bought a Pultra that take up more space as it's handy to have another but small accurate lathe about.
Odd I can't see the image when I try to add this particular photo.
No matter more amusement than relevance really
John
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I'd better add that full depth for an end mill is the same as it's diameter where I come from.
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Edited By John W1 on 11/07/2015 13:06:16
Edited By John W1 on 11/07/2015 13:06:47