There have been many studies on chatter vibration in machining, but there seems to be no regulation to decide the commencing point of chatter objectively. The development of an objective method which can estimate chatter commencement is necessary for automatic manufacturing systems dynamic performance tests for machine tools, etc. In this study, therefore, the estimation of chatter has been experimentally investigated for the chuck work turning process. Consequently, the commencing point of chatter can be decided from the behavior of the mean square value of the work piece deflection, where the meansquare value is suddenly increasing with the chatter commencement. Then the commencing point of chatter can be estimated practically by this method before the occurrence of excessive vibration.