TTS Tool Holders- Collets

[verbotenwhisky]

For most of the work on the mill, the TTS collet system works well. For those few times when I don't have sufficient clearance, I have my R8 collets to fall back on. The most common situation where I run out of Z is tapping. I made a tap follower that completely sits inside a 3/4" R* collet but the combination of the tap and wrench eat up the Z. My first tap follower consisted of simply a long spring which fit inside a 3/8" R8 collet and a pointed pin. Aside from having to capture the pin when removing the tap, it work well and consumed no extra z.

You know, everyone makes everything to fit into an R8, there are R8 fly cutters, R8 mill holders, R8 etc... But now that I think about it I have never seen an R8 tap follower (something similar to an R8 collet with a spring loaded point sticking out of it...... hummmmm

 

[rwm]

Now that you mention this, I may need a TTS tap follower!

 

[Weldingrod1]

Having a set of 1/32" R8 collets is a big help when you are short on Z! Mostly drill bits...
Plus, it can save you a lot of cranking on the Z when going between mill and drill.
Surprisingly cheap. I don't use these for end mills, I have GOOD German collets for that

Sent from my SM-S911U using Tapatalk

 

[rwm]

I found another tool holder hiding in a piece of scrap.



Not sure what I'll do with this yet. It will have to be for something that tolerates runout (fly cutter, tram indicator, drill, etc). Maybe a center drill, but I am not sure how useful that would be, since I would be switching to a drill chuck anyway typically. Tap follower would work, but again that will likely follow a drill chuck anyway.

 

[Advil]

That destroyed holder is perfect to turn back and stick a tap follower in and just use a set screw to keep it in place.

 

[rwm]

It's not actually destroyed but made from scrap. I like your idea!
(it started life as a hitch pin for a large trailer)

 

[rwm]

I drew this up in Fusion with the correct dimensions. I have updated the pdf drawing in post #19 in case anyone needs to refer to it in the future


Yes there should be a through hole but you can make that whatever size works for you.

 

[Advil]

Lol I wasn't trying to insult your work the top end is beautiful I saw the bottom portion and instead of seeing stock surface I thought it was a good holder than had rubbed and crashed while in use. I get it now that I know that's hitch pin surface. You have a blank. Super handy. I need about half a dozen TTS blanks for various projects.

 

[rwm]

Lol I wasn't trying to insult your work the top end is beautiful I saw the bottom portion and instead of seeing stock surface I thought it was a good holder than had rubbed and crashed while in use. I get it now that I know that's hitch pin surface. You have a blank. Super handy. I need about half a dozen TTS blanks for various projects.

No worries. Are you gonna make blanks or buy them? I would consider making more but I don't have a collet chuck for my lathe and I don't think I can get concentricity down to .005 or better. As you say, that's fine for a tap follower.

 

[rwm]

The runout of one of my shop made TTS holders is measuring about .0003



I'm pretty sure my spindle has that much runout so It's hard to say where this error is.