ER Style Collets

[Kenwc]

Just curious if any of you use ER 32 or 40 collets on your metal lathe and for what purposes. I often use them to spin roundy things on my wood lathe to polish parts of machines that I restore. Lately though I've been using some on my metal lathe for smaller things but being the novice I am wanted to ask.

Thanks....Ken

 

[British Steel]

Hi Ken,

I have ER32 collets and D1-5 mounted chuck for metric sizes 1 - 22mm, original Holbrook draw-in collets and closer for Imperial 1/16" to 3/4" by 32nds, and a 5C collet chuck (on a D1-5 backplate again!)for any oddballs, as and when I need them I buy them. I find them excellent for accurately centring work, and the ER collets particularly get a good grip on milling cutters due to the long, parallel clamping.
Whichever collet system, one of the main bonuses over a jaw chuck is lack of marking on the workpiece - very useful when turning shafts etc., and about the only way to quickly grip threads without damaging them. The ER collets are good for not-quite-nominal diameter work as well, as they have a 1mm clamping range (eventual collet fatigue notwithstanding).

I have a mill head that I'm hoping to adapt to the lathe (on a column-and-ram of my own devising) and will probably go with either an ER25 or 32 to MT2 adaptor on that, most likely 32 as I have a good range of collets

Dave H.

 

[Kenwc]

Thanks Dave...those are some good posts....and sorry yea guilty of not searching first. Sometimes it's good to get a subject back to the top.

Plus....even with that post I'm still just SWARF...:huh:

 

[Old Iron]

I have a ER 40 collet set up for the mill and I use 5C collets on my Lathe.

Paul

 

[wakeup]

I have a set of ER32 collets and use them in my Sieg C3 lathe and Sieg X2 mill. I also use ER11 collets in my tailstock turret, but that's another story.
I have got a lot of collets, collet chucks and other stuff from CTC Tools in Hong Kong. Have a look you may be surprised. No connection with them other than as a satisfied customer, go to

http://www.ctctools.biz/servlet/StoreFront

cheers
bp

 

[Kenwc]

I bought an MT4 ER32 collet and set from CTC Tools in Hong Kong as well (via eBay). Very happy with them for the price point.

The problem with the set I got was being a drawbar system I lost the ability to do long stock.

What I have done since then is get an ER32 holder on a faceplate and made an adapter for a chuck backplate.
Managed to get it to 0.0005 run-out and now can run long stock through the lathe spindle.

The holder I got was from Tools4Cheap
http://www.tools4cheap.net/proddetail.php?prod=er32plate&cat=11

Thanks Paul...thats the way I want to go as well is with a "through" chuck and I've spoken to Jeff at toolsforcheap about that very one. I simply don't think I have the skills yet to make the backplate. Way newbie here.