Thread: Er40 Collet Chuck

very neat.



I will add that idea to the considerable list of useful things to build

Thanks for sharing

How much was the blank and which part do you have to machine yourself?

Nice...Bob

You might want to hop onto eBay and buy yourself an extra nut or two. Sooner or later you will have a set up in one you don't want to disturb while needing the nut for the other machine.

Nice work though. A collet chuck I think is one of the more under rated improvements you can make to a lathe.

Michael

Hi Jack620,
The blank was supplied with the headstock thread already cut and the outside partly turned for shape.I also asked for Pipeclay to turn the collet thread and start the taper.I just had to finish turn the OD and then enlarge the taper to get a nice fit for the collets.This was easy enough but very exacting.Good thing you can have a few goes while you work your way back to the depth required.I will leave the costing of the blank to pipeclay and yourself but it was so reasonable I had to add on a bit more to his price to feel right about it.
Hi MichaelG,
I bought 2 nuts via CTC tooling for $23 and used the old one off my mill for the lathe.It's thread was a better fit.Something to think about when you are doing this sort of thing.I could have just trimmed the OD of the thread but the 2 nuts fitted the mill spindle so i didn't bother.

Hi,
Both you and Pipeclay have done a good job on that.

With your run out, something to think about is that with ER collets the nut also helps to align the collet with the taper inside it. So if the threads where done on Pipeclays lathe and they are a neat fit on the nut, it could be pulling it over to one side slightly, giving you a small amount of run out.

If you could loosen the fit of the nut slightly on the chuck, it may help to let the nut float a little and let the collet seat into the chuck taper fully.

This is just a suggestion, but it may help if you want to chase up the run out before grinding it, as the collet chuck taper maybe spot on already but the nut maybe pulling it over because it was done on another lathe.

Dave

Good thought Dave I will give it a go before more drastic work.