- Joined
- Aug 26, 2013
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- 1,061
I'm getting ready to buy a new mill, and that got me thinking about collets and how many you actually need. The last (and only) mill I owned came with a large set of collets, and pretty much all the other mills I've used had a large set as well. Thinking back I can't remember using more than a handful of them. Lots of places sell 11 or 12 piece sets, but how many sizes do you really need if all your using them for, is to hold end mills. Out of curiosity, I grabbed the data below from msc's website, it's end mill shank size, and the count of each.
Based on my personal experience & the chart, it seems like at most I need 1/8", 3/16" 1/4", 5/16", 3/8", 1/2", 5/8" & 3/4" collets. What does everyone else think, Whats a necessity, and whats just nice to have?
shank Diameter | count |
1/8" | 3450 |
5/32" | 6 |
3/16" | 1651 |
1/4" | 1487 |
5/16" | 1112 |
11/32" | 1 |
3/8" | 4328 |
7/16" | 740 |
1/2" | 2389 |
9/16" | 200 |
5/8" | 1495 |
3/4" | 1769 |
7/8" | 417 |
Based on my personal experience & the chart, it seems like at most I need 1/8", 3/16" 1/4", 5/16", 3/8", 1/2", 5/8" & 3/4" collets. What does everyone else think, Whats a necessity, and whats just nice to have?