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Would you believe

ducdon

ducdon

Super User
Premium Member
I have a number of lathe tool holders from various sources. It always made me crazy because it required a different Allen Key for the clamp screws. 5mm or 3/16. The height adjustment screws are all 5mm Allen. Would you believe all the screws are all 10mm metric but some of them have 3/16 Allen Head. Blaaa! Who would do that? I changed them all to 10mm with 5mm Allen ! The pile on the left are 10mm with 5 mm Allen head. Those on the right are 10mm with 3/16 Allen head? NUTS!


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I’ve followed dabbler’s example and using socket head cap screws. They use a bigger Allen key.
 
Check the pitch on the threads. They could actually be IMP. I have some of those. Or they could be such poorly stamped hex heads on the screws that just so happen to fit another non-standard wrench. I just bought nice set screws & replaced them. Some of the more recent tool blocks I bought (from KBC) have improved, I'm ok with the set screws but the early ones were garbage. Same deal on the tapped hole, good idea to run the correct tap through it & clean up the threads. I think the heat treating distorts them a bit, for sure gets mung in there.
 
PeterT said:
Check the pitch on the threads. They could actually be IMP. I have some of those. Or they could be such poorly stamped hex heads on the screws that just so happen to fit another non-standard wrench. I just bought nice set screws & replaced them. Some of the more recent tool blocks I bought (from KBC) have improved, I'm ok with the set screws but the early ones were garbage. Same deal on the tapped hole, good idea to run the correct tap through it & clean up the threads. I think the heat treating distorts them a bit, for sure gets mung in there.
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Threads in the tool holders are good per the pitch gauge. M10x1.5. I just swapped them out for good ones. Just weird that's all.
 
I have a bunch of Chinese made BXA size tool holders from a few different vendors. Aloris tool holders are about $200 each, out of reach for me. I have some from Shars, Accusize and All Industrial Tool Supply. Some of them have M8 set screws and some M10. Some of the set screws are visibly crap and some look nice but are soft and the sockets strip easily. I went to The Bolt Supply House and bought all new high quality set screws to end the frustration caused but the cheap screws. I bought 50 of M8 X 16mm and 50 of M10 X 16mm so I have plenty of spares for future use. I bought 5 new tool holders from Accusize recently and the screws are actually quite good and I haven't bothered the change them. Much better quality tool holders than the ones I bought from Accusize a few years ago. I think Accusize is selling better quality stuff then they did in the past. I've been impressed with the last few items I bought from them.
 
I did the exact same thing last year; I've got about 5 brands of holders and multiple variances in the screws: some all M10, some M8, some all SAE, some thread metric and socket SAE, some just plain junk....

Yup....pick a size and buy a bag of replacements, then switch em all to 1 size that fits your other tooling and it saves a world of stress.
 
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