The Deckel Collet Adventure

[sshire]

The Deckel Collet Adventure

The Deckel SO T&C grinder uses U2 collets.



Not only do they have a fairly narrow grip range, but the Made by Deckel collets are almost $100.00 USD each. (1/32” increments).

The Made in Taiwan collets at $29.00 each only come in 1/16” increments.

My SO came with the standard set of Deckel collets from .125 - .6875 in 1/16” increments. BTW, a new, standard Deckel set is $600.00.

Of course, the first few pieces from my extensive collection of broken tap shanks didn’t fit. Too loose or too tight.

What to do? Here’s my solution.

An ER20 straight shank holder to fit the  .6875 Deckel collet.
A set of ER20 collets.
Holder and collet set from eBay. Total $36.00

The ER20 holder



The Collet set



The holder was inserted into a 5C collet from the rear. Amazingly, it was a perfect fit to the inside of the 5C.




 Then, parted to reduce the shank length.





Fitted into the Deckel collet.



Then, into the Deckel.



And, it does work. The only issue, which I think I have a solution for, is the small squaring alignment gauge. Certainly not a deal breaker.



Final note: the Deckel Square collets are $300.00 each. The fix is in on holding square tool bits thanks to a Harold Hall article.More on that later. No, I’m not a big fan of putting a square into a round collet.

[Bjorn_B]

Nice, it seems that it would be possible to reduce overhang a lot by making a er mandrel from scratch if needed.

[petertha]

Was it more the progressive INCH series you were having trouble filling in? I've seen offshore metric. Could that have filled in the gaps for you (example screen grab from Aliexpress, the usual quality caveats although I think I've seen similar of Taiwan origin).

I'm intrigued by those Deckel T&C machines but have never seen one in real life.

[pgp001]

Hi Stan

Your solution will do 99% of what you need it for, the only trouble I can see with it is the overhang does not let the cutter go back over the centre of the pivot for when you need to grind a radius on the end of a tool. Plus you have restricted the maximum size of tool that you can grind.

It is not that big a job to make a dedicated ER spindle as mentioned above, I have done it on a couple of my dividing heads and also on my Union cutter grinder for the same reason, the only difference being that I use DA180 collets instead of ER because I already had them.



Phil

[sshire]

I did see the offerings from Aliexpress, but this seemed like an interesting exercise with fewer collets given the wider grip range of the ER collets.

I've watched a few videos on making an ER Chuck. Doesn't look like a major undertaking. Could be a future weekend project once I get the Monitor completed.

Actually, I can get the tip over the axis of rotation as the Deckel collet holder (which is holding the ER Chuck) is pretty far forward on the dovetail slide. Moving it to the rear gets the tool bit far enough back.
There are so many movements on the Deckel that I keep finding new ones.

[ShopShoe]

"... making an ER Chuck. Doesn't look like a major undertaking."

Not hard at all. I did it and It only took a few hours. It was actually a fun little project.


ShopShoe

[Sblack]

The Deckel Collet Adventure

The fix is in on holding square tool bits thanks to a Harold Hall article.More on that later. No, I’m not a big fan of putting a square into a round collet.

what is your fix for square tool bits? I am just bought a deckel clone and I will be facing the same issue.

[sshire]

I've made a set of these from Harold Hall's instructions.
http://www.homews.co.uk/page75.html

[Sblack]

Brilliant thank you!

Scott