A Diferent Collet stop

[gcarsen]

I was going through my tool box today and came across something from way out of the past, figured you would get a kick out of this.
About 15 years ago one of my customers called and he was in a dire panic, he got a very tight grinding job on a fussy part that was a fairly large run. it was a tube with a very thin wall and short length to diameter ratio with some fingers poking down around like a spider. running in a collet was fine for the TIR on the diameter, but the part was so short the collet would not hold it true for the face runout. with the legs sticking down , a soft collet became very complicated and expensive quickly. the face datum was between the legs, and the usual 5c collet stop would not work.
I though about it for a bit , came up with this hair brain idea. I made this 3 legged spider that fit down in the slots on a standard 5c collet. the diameter is just shy of the od of the collet. milling this out 1.250 diameter, and about 18 inches long, the legs came out to about .040 thick, was a real pain!!!! then cut them up into a couple inch lengths. grabed a collet slid it in , tightened down the collet on the spider, faced it of so it ran true, flipped it around measured the depth of the splits on the collet to the face of the collet, subtracted the length of the part to hold in the collet, faced the other end down to that dimension.
readjusted the collet to fit the part, slid the spider down the slits in the collet, slid the part in and back against the spider and presto. the face now ran perfect along with the diameter! he ran out the job lot and was verry happy!
I have used it a few times since on real oddball job's, but in the last 8 years, lathe work might acount for .5% of my workload. so figured I would share it with you,,
Grant

[GlennW]

That is now available as an extrusion from either Travers Tool or MSC (can't remember which one) in their sales catalog in lengths.

[gcarsen]

Glenn!
I did not know you could get it! if you could post a link for future references, that would be nice! I would hate to have to make more again sometime!

[warmstrong1955]

http://www.travers.com/product.asp?n=|| ... D600%2D020

http://www1.mscdirect.com/cgi/NNSRIT2?P ... rchResults

I think I'd go with Travers.....

Bill

[hammermill]

thanks its a differient neat idea

[Lew Hartswick]

http://www.travers.com/product.asp?n=|| ... D600%2D020
I think I'd go with Travers.....

Bill

Is it my computer or that link? I went there and couldn't get back. Had to close the browser and re-
start.
...lew...

[warmstrong1955]

I just checked 'em again....on my PC and my iPad, and the hotlink works for me on both.

Not sure whatcha got goin' on.

How about going to the Travers homepage http://www.travers.com/ and search for Travers item 69-600-020 and see if that gets you there.

Mitee-Bite part number is 10105

Bill

[art.h]

Have used them, however they have one slight weakness. If the actual slots in the collet are not equal in length-- do not depend on perfect squarness of face off when doing short length parts like .050" x .750"Dia.. The draw of the collet can cause lack of squarness, longer lengths closer to the the stock dia. this problem disappears, art.h...

[hammermill]

lew depending on the web browser software it may be opening as a seperate tab which is why you can not get back without closing looking at the top of the tool bar may give you a better idea.ken