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What collet is this?
- Thread starter Susquatch
- Start date
Hey, small pieces of collet wisdom that nobody ever told me. I assume you already know but best not to take chances.
1. Always snap the Collets into the collet retainer before screwing it together. Insert at an angle and then twist to engage. Remove the same way - twist sideways till it snaps out.
2. Never use a smaller collet than fits your tool. Collets can be squeezed to fit but should not be stretched to fit.
3. Strips of pop can can be used to improve collet fit for in between size tools.
4. Keep em clean.
5. Collets work better than any drill chuck. I use them in the collet chuck of my lathe to hold parts, in the tailstock of my lathe to hold drills and of course in my mills.
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I know what you mean about giving back, i recently gave an old leg vise and a post drill to a youngster that is into blacksmithing. Was looking for some old style tools for his shop so i gave him these tools my grandfather had when he was building up the old homestead. Still have the old blower for the forge just can't find it.
Just a personal opinion but I would add footnotes to #3 and 5
#3, pop can (aluminum / shim) of course can be added. I've done it myself. But recognize you are somewhat kind of defeating the purpose of a collet which is minimizing the number of contact surfaces for both accuracy & grip. Here you have gone from 2 surfaces (collet to part) to 4. If you are just turning something that has to be gripped then who cares. But if you are counting on concentricity and need to work sub-thou, this is not optimal. Unfortunately, the solution costs money. Either a finer graduated collet set like 1/64 vs 1/32 on IMP 5C for example. Or ER's which span a wider range per collet but have other potential disadvantages depending on the application. BTW I use (I think its called flashing?) tape which is kind of a aluminum foil with adhesive back. You can wrap it over a part surface beforehand & it stays put going into the collet or chuck which is less fiddly than shims. Mostly I use it to prevent bite barks but it can buffer annular distance too.
#5 'better' is of course relative. Consider a very ordinary operation - a threaded hole: 1) drill a pilot hole 2) tap the hole 3) counterbore or chamfer the hole = potentially 3 collet changes depending on respective shank diameters. Potentially 4 changes if you had to insert a positioning indicator as step 0.5. That consumes a lot more shop time than opening & closing a drill chuck, especially a keyless one. Now multiply that by the number of holes. Is it more accurate? Depends on the relative quality of your chuck, your collet & position of tailstock. Holding EM's is debatable. I use collets all the time for small ones especially swapping metric & imperial. But there is a reason for Weldon style shanks (a ground detent) even on 1/4" shanks, but especially on bigger tools. Its a form of key to prevent spin-out and also pull-out under load. An R8 collet for example requires torque via the drawbar transferred through the taper seat for tool clamping pressure. I wouldn't consider it excessive wear & tear on a hearty mill in lighter loads, but my point is a dedicated R8 end mill holder confines gripping gronk to the holder itself. The business end of the spindle just has to hold the tool holder. Again, just an opinion, lots of ways todo machining.
#3, pop can (aluminum / shim) of course can be added. I've done it myself. But recognize you are somewhat kind of defeating the purpose of a collet which is minimizing the number of contact surfaces for both accuracy & grip. Here you have gone from 2 surfaces (collet to part) to 4. If you are just turning something that has to be gripped then who cares. But if you are counting on concentricity and need to work sub-thou, this is not optimal. Unfortunately, the solution costs money. Either a finer graduated collet set like 1/64 vs 1/32 on IMP 5C for example. Or ER's which span a wider range per collet but have other potential disadvantages depending on the application. BTW I use (I think its called flashing?) tape which is kind of a aluminum foil with adhesive back. You can wrap it over a part surface beforehand & it stays put going into the collet or chuck which is less fiddly than shims. Mostly I use it to prevent bite barks but it can buffer annular distance too.
#5 'better' is of course relative. Consider a very ordinary operation - a threaded hole: 1) drill a pilot hole 2) tap the hole 3) counterbore or chamfer the hole = potentially 3 collet changes depending on respective shank diameters. Potentially 4 changes if you had to insert a positioning indicator as step 0.5. That consumes a lot more shop time than opening & closing a drill chuck, especially a keyless one. Now multiply that by the number of holes. Is it more accurate? Depends on the relative quality of your chuck, your collet & position of tailstock. Holding EM's is debatable. I use collets all the time for small ones especially swapping metric & imperial. But there is a reason for Weldon style shanks (a ground detent) even on 1/4" shanks, but especially on bigger tools. Its a form of key to prevent spin-out and also pull-out under load. An R8 collet for example requires torque via the drawbar transferred through the taper seat for tool clamping pressure. I wouldn't consider it excessive wear & tear on a hearty mill in lighter loads, but my point is a dedicated R8 end mill holder confines gripping gronk to the holder itself. The business end of the spindle just has to hold the tool holder. Again, just an opinion, lots of ways todo machining.
I actually considered adding a lot of that debate to the points made, but opted to keep it simple knowing that someone, with more experience than I have, would prolly jump in. You didn't disappoint! I agree on all counts.
That said, it's a 1/8 set so it will likely only be used to hold endmills of that particular shaft size. But never say never!
Tom O
Ultra Member
It’s nice to help out the youngsters. That blower wasn’t a 6.5 Fan was it?
