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Lathe collets.

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Gas_mantle:
I'm kind of thinking of buying a collet chuck for my small bench lathe and had expected to go for an ER25 so that I can use the existing collets from my mill, it turns out my lathe takes ER32 which isn't a problem but does mean I'm no longer tied to buying ER.

I'm happy to stick with the ER system but have looked at others, is there any appreciable advantages with C5 or R8 systems ?

Many thanks
Peter

Jasonb:
Not sure why your lathe won't take an ER25 chuck, you just machine a backplate to fit the lathe and then fit an ER25 chuck to that. Downside is ER25 is quite small and probably less than your lathe spindle.

I find the shape of my 5C chuck is nice to work with on small items when you may be using a file to knock off the corners or a hand graver due to there neing nothing to catch your hands on unlike an ER nut or chuck jaws. You can get square and round 5C  collets which are nice to have in the commonly used sizes. 5C just needs a single key to tighten. Downside is they are size specific so you can't easily hold odd sized items and need a collet for each imperial and metric size you want to hold.

R8 are not used on the lathe

Gas_mantle:
Cheers Jason,

I could use ER25 on my lathe if I do a bit of machining but it seems a bit of a backward step to do that when an ER32 will simply bolt on and allow larger collets for pretty much the same cost.

I guess for the simple stuff I build collets may be a bit of a luxury but the idea of being able to transfer something from my lathe to my mill in a collet block without having to mess around trying to hold something small and accurately is attractive. I've tried to buy a chuck for my rotary table without success so collet blocks could be useful

Thor:
Hi Peter,

 I made an ER 32 collet chuck for my small lathe and it get used a lot. My small lathe has a 20mm hole through the mandrel and I already had ER 32 collets for my milling machine, I only bought a new collet nut. Here is a link to how I made my collet chuck: Link
I agree with Jason about what he says about 5C collets but a 5C chuck would have cost me far more.

Thor

Jo:
Morning Peter,

A set of ER32 collets and a holders are cheap relative to a set of 5C. Both have their good and bad points but in my view 5C are worth the extra investment.

If you want an endorsement: My Mr Silky comes with an integral 5C collet holder on his nose and Schaublin who designed ER collets did it to hold tools on their machines, for turning they do not use ER they have the W series of collets ::)

Jo

P.S. Had to go an sit down I think I just saw Jason admit he likes 5C collets over ER for turning   :noidea:

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