Well, today was collet grinding day. I was having a heck of a time getting the 1.5 inch 6061 through the collet. It seems that the collet (Lindex) was made on a Friday afternoon and the bore had a bit of a taper in it.
I was having to drive the stock through the collet with a dead blow hammer, OK for testing but not acceptable for production. These collets have about 2 inch deep grip surface, and the first inch or so was OK, but the last inch was tight.
So first shim the slots in the collet so it can't collapse. I went to Harbor Freight and bought a half dozen feeler gauge sets ($5.00 each, cheap shim stock) yesterday for tool holder shims, and today used a few blades to make the shims for the collet.
Of course they are too long and wide to fit the collet properly so a little grinding is in order.
So using the cutoff wheel start trimming the shims down. I got a little bit sloppy with the grinder but it won't hurt the collet function at all.
Then mount up my air grinder in a tool holder and dress the wheel. Can't really see it but that's a dressing diamond in the collet. I made that air grinder holder when I had to regrind the bore in my cheap Ebay 5C collet chuck for my other lathe.
No real worries about grinding dust in this lathe, the ways and ball screws are well protected and the spindle has an air purge. Then when I was done, flushed out and washed down everything with coolant.
Now the material slides through the collet like it should, and I can use a part puller.
And on another note, got the G code squared away and made the first production quality part. The lathe cuts exactly where it's told to.
