Quote Originally Posted by Richard Coers View Post
Not all cup centers are free wheeling. Some turners use a fixed cup center to drive a spindle while they are learning. A catch with a skew is not bad when the cup center in the headstock can spin instead of taking a chunk of wood from the spindle. OneWay calls theirs a safety drive center. If you use a drive spur to start turning a bowl, you have options to recenter to blank to clean up a void or get a more centered spot to show off the grain. A face plate also has screws to deal with and it's no fun to hit them with a gouge.
Using a fixed cup drive center is hardly only for beginners in spindle turning. I frequently use use them for complex spindle turning, precisely because they allow the spindle to slip. I also use them extensively in multiaxis turning, again since they allow slippage rather than a serious catch or dismount. I learned that usage from Derek Weidman.