Hi everyone

i have ave been looking at setting up a collet chuck in my Emco super 11 lathe and am looking for some advice please. I have read many previous posts which has lead me to the following summary.

ER collets have wider range of holding size per collet, were designed primarily for milling tool holding, grip along entire collet length and are generally for holding round stock.

5c collets were designed for work holding in lathes, have narrow holding size (need more collets to cover size range compared to ER), grip at front of collet, very good at holding short pieces, can buy inserts for square and hex bar, can bore own size collets and potentially less marking of surfaces when holding threads etc compared to ER (I’m not sure about this last one?).

I don’t have any collets or a milling machine at the moment so am starting from scratch. I intend to make small screws (2mm thread) and small barrel pivots (4-5mm) as well as bolt action pens (probably around 10mm diameter). With my intended uses in mind is there a particular reason that you feel one collet type would be better for me over the other?

I was pretty set set on going ER-32 as it seems a popular and easy route but after a fair bit of research I have started to lean towards 5c. Both are readily available and price in setting up for each not too dissimilar (not enough to persuade me one way or another).

I have a Bison 3 jaw and an Emco 4 jaw chuck already that came with the lathe.

In my shoes what would you do?
Ian


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