Poor Man's Collet Chuck

[Rangemaster1]

I occasionally have a project where a collet would be useful in my lathe. I have a 5C collet closer for it, but the setup takes too long because of the spider on the outboard end of the headstock. Everything needs to come off, including the lathe gear cover, spider, the chuck and then back on which can take up an hour or more. It's not worth the aggravation for a quick one off job that's too small for the four jaw.

After some thought and looking at the cost of a collet closing chuck, I chose to make a “poor man’s” collet chuck. I had an ER 40 R8 chuck that was searching for a purpose. I also have a fairly good set of ER 40 collets.

I set up the chuck in my four jaw, cut the R8 mount off the ER 40 chuck and bored out the back end of the chuck so stock of up to one inch would pass thru. With the spider for outboard support, I can work with stock of up to about three feet, depending upon diameter.

Now I dial in the ER chuck in my four jaw ( ten minutes or less) and I'm off and running. The TIR is + or – 2 ½ tenths, repeatable.

One caution, those chucks are really hard. I used a carbide cutoff and boring bar for the work.

 

[FOMOGO]

Necessity is the mother of invention they say. Nice job. Mike

 

[kingmt01]

Looks really good. That will be so handy.

 

[brino]

That looks like a great solution!
-brino

 

[newbydave]

I occasionally have a project where a collet would be useful in my lathe. I have a 5C collet closer for it, but the setup takes too long because of the spider on the outboard end of the headstock. Everything needs to come off, including the lathe gear cover, spider, the chuck and then back on which can take up an hour or more. It's not worth the aggravation for a quick one off job that's too small for the four jaw.

After some thought and looking at the cost of a collet closing chuck, I chose to make a “poor man’s” collet chuck. I had an ER 40 R8 chuck that was searching for a purpose. I also have a fairly good set of ER 40 collets.

I set up the chuck in my four jaw, cut the R8 mount off the ER 40 chuck and bored out the back end of the chuck so stock of up to one inch would pass thru. With the spider for outboard support, I can work with stock of up to about three feet, depending upon diameter.

Now I dial in the ER chuck in my four jaw ( ten minutes or less) and I'm off and running. The TIR is + or – 2 ½ tenths, repeatable.

One caution, those chucks are really hard. I used a carbide cutoff and boring bar for the work.

Nice repurpose of the r8 collet holder

 

[kd4gij]

I made an er40 coollet chuck that screws on my spindle. But I bave been knowen to chuck it in my 4 jaw a time or 2.

 

[T Bredehoft]

I'm with kd4gij, that's exactly what I did. Started out holding the bar stock in my 4 Jaw, chased the 1" 10 threads on the inside of the end and bored the pilot. Screwed it on the spindle and made an ER 40 holder out of it.

 

[kingmt01]

I've thought about clamping my little tiny chuck from my mini lathe in the 10" to work on small work. I may still give that a try. Maybe I'll get lucky & find a copy setup someday.