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"Precision" or "does NOT do what it says on the tin"

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chris stephens	03/11/2009 23:44:43
1049 forum posts 1 photos	Hi my Fellow machinists, It is time for me to relate the tale of a "Precision" 5C collet chuck. I will not say from whom I purchased the said items because I have not given them the chance to correct matters and it would be unfair to them. To start at the begining, I have a collection of 5C collets, which I use in a Spin Indexer, so I thought I would buy a collet chuck to fit on my Bantam. I thought wouldn't it be nice to just plonk a bit of stock in the lathe and have it run true first time, everytime. No more using the four jaw for everything. So, I machined a back plate, nice tight fit in the recess in the 5C chuck, drilled and tapped the holes for the holding bolts and bolted the chuck on. It is at this point that things started to not go according to plan. I foolishly thought a lump of 1"PGMS, would run true, it did not. Dammit, I thought it must not be a lump of PGMS after all. Ripped off, again! Had a bit of think time, a mug of coffee really, and measured the run out about 6" from the chuck, miles out. Thinks, must have machined the back plate out of true, not quite sure how I could but what do I know? Round two, put the DTI on the back plate, register and face, showed no run out, phew, I am not as bad at machining as I thought. What to do? I know , reduce size of register, if it was good enough for GHT, it'sgood enogh for me. Took about five thou of diameter of register and bolted the chuck back on, and tapped it true, Great I thought, wrong, just as far out six inches from collet. I know, bits of cooking foil between chuck and back plate, to even up wobble. Yeah right! Several itterations later, over a couple of days, could not get it to run up to expectations. I even tried curing problem by facing the rear of the chuck, no improvement. Round three, found a video of some chappie across the pond about his "precision" 5C collet chuck and how wonderful it was to just plonk a bit of stock in the collet and have it run true first time everytime, sound familiar? So finally got round to trying to make it work, again. Set the thing up, put 1" PGMS in collet and checked with a DTI, got it running dead true at collet, with the aid of a big rubber mallet, sounds better than saying a big hammer, then checked at six inches away, out by roughly 15 thou. Another thickness of foil and many whacks of hammer, sorry mallet, got it true at collet and ten(ish) thou at six inches, hmm progress. Another thickness of foil and hey presto it seems to be as accurate as I had hoped. Wrong again, 'cos when I took the bar out and put it in again, the blasted thing was out. What I noticed was that when I tightened the collet the DTI moved, this was not meant to happen! Then I noticed that I could move the bar out of true by pulling it. This also was not meant to happen. Thinks! It must be that the the collet is not as good a fit in the chuck as it should be, so I measured them, all were about 1 thou undersize 1.249" against correct size of 1.250". Then I measured the inside of the chuck, 1.251", this means that the 2thou play allowed all the movement and aggro. I tried the least undersize collet and sure enough the max wobble was smaller than before. We now come to the reason for the post, how to fix problem, without spending many hundreds of beer and petrol tokens on Hardinge collets and collet chuck. The best solution I can think of is to drill through side of chuck at three or four points and insert adjustable brass points, rather like a fixed steady, which will then be bored to the right diameter to hold the collet firmly. As all but three collets are 1 thou under size, this should fix most of the problem, but what do you folks think? Other thoughts (dismissed) were to have collets chromed and ground back to size. Another was to plate the chuck and bore it to size, also dismissed. The other question is, am I expecting too much, should "precision" mean dead accurate or as some suppliers seem to think near enough is good enough. Granted that the parts are at the budget end of the market, but one collet, namely the ER converting one, is only available from one supplier and yes it is ! thou under, just like the others. Seems odd that nearly all the collets, which have of course a ground finish are the same amount undersize, why could they not grind them to the correct size, as they can grind them consistanly to the same but wrong size? The collets by the way come from at least three different manufacturers, judging by the slight differences in form. With all this farting about looking for some form of true precision, is it any wonder I am giving serious thought to giving up this ridiculous hobby of ours. Just think no more little brass needles stuck in my poor little digits. Sounds good to me. I wonder where I can learn something useful, like cake decorating perhaps, at least with that hobby you can eat your mistakes! Any thoughts, out there in 'puterland? chris stephens
Circlip	04/11/2009 10:32:05
1723 forum posts	As you state Chris, the supplier should be allowed to advise before you witter. So why Didn't you go down that road first????? One of the sad results of many who have disposable income to burn is that basic skills suffer due to the ability to throw cash at a problem and expect to become master craftsmen. The collet system was introduced to allow the fast turnround of material to make vast profits for the engineering company owners. As you have stated in the past Chris, you are part of the human RACE, so your free time to partake in an alleged HOBBY must be somewhat of a dissapointment to have to set up a four jaw. Did you pay a lot of money for the mentioned set??, The ones from Crawford and the likes never seemed to suffer from these problems, or are we talking Chiwanese??? It REALLY surprises me how the likes of Thomas and Westbury et al managed to produce items that FAR exceed in quality and finish, some of the renditions made with the ADVANTAGES?? of all the latest "Home workshop" technology.
mike robinson 2	04/11/2009 11:35:16
38 forum posts 32 photos	I have stopped wasting my money on eastern products, they look nice in the brochure, are at a very attractive price but are for the most part very poor dimensional quality and fail to deliver. Instead of helping you, such products make your task even harder. My final decider was when i bought an internal micrometer, it looked good, was about £25 but had .004" of backlash which could not be accomodated by the adjuster, It was just rubbish. You get what you pay for its as simple as that. Try eBay and buy used quality products. Send the collets back and ask for a refund, its clearly not of merchantable quality Good luck.
John Haine	04/11/2009 16:19:42
5563 forum posts 322 photos	I think one lesson here is to ask suppliers of all this low-cost tooling for a SPEC before buying. First, you can then check that the spec meets your needs; and also whether the kit meets the spec. The first might save you hassle buying something unsuitable; the second gives you easy comeback at the supplier. Talking of PGMS by the way, I bought a length of 1" centreless ground PGMS from a supplier at a MEX a few years ago....it measured 1" diameter OK, but it wasn't round at all as I found when I tried to mount it running true in the 4Jaw! John.
Tony Pratt 1	04/11/2009 18:25:43
2319 forum posts 13 photos	Hi Chris, my sympathies and understanding. I have worked in Toolmaking all my life and when we used quality european or american tooling it would be made to a recognised standard and the accuracy of collets etc when new would be very good indeed and if not they would have to answer the question "why not"? You of course paid a very high price for this guaranteed accuracy. I am now not in Toolmaking and just run a hobby shop and like all of us have been seduced by nicely ground shiny things at ridiculously low prices [this is one of the reasons we don't have any manufacturing left in the UK], but I wouldn't be suprised at all if the accuracy was not too good. It is very worrying that you are getting a wobble on your test bar and I don't think it is just the difference in diameters which is the problem as I would have thought the front taper would tend to selp centralise and align your test bar but I may be wrong. To me it seems as if the chuck bore is not truly square to the rear reference face. It will be very interesting to see what specs the chuck is made to, if any. Please keep us informed on how you get on. Tony
mgj	04/11/2009 18:32:14
1017 forum posts 14 photos	Chris - I think you have a couple of choices. 1. Send the whole lot back. You will need to check the spec for 5c collets to see whether they are out of spec BTW. Sometimes one can be unpleasantly surprised. OTOH you are after a set of collets, and it would seem that the collets are OK, apart from this undersize caper. I take the point about making all ones own kit - I did the same. Nothing to do with disposable income merely the desire to have stuff that was dead on. Hence the Quorn, Dore Westbury, Radcliffe topslide, GHT dividing head and various bits from Model Engineering Services. Plus tee nuts and various holding thingys for millsand all sorts. All are absolutely spot on and I mean made spot on. The problem is that many want to make models and not tools. Now I buy tooling, because time is limited - my choice. I have never been let down by Chiwanese but I have always kept away from the real economy stuff. As for quality second hand - well that's fine too. Except that one can be certain of 2 things - you don't know how it has been used, and you do know that someone didn't want it enough to get rid of it, for some reason. There are, it would appear, to be Pooh Traps either way. Back to this collet system. I don't think you are going to repair the collets, because there will be a pile to do. 2 So its down to repairing the chuck. You can bore and sleeve to size in situ - very accurate. Or you could get it metal sprayed and ground internally. The problem is that every time you buy another 5C holder to increase flexibility, you know you will have the slackness to sort before it is usable. For my money it goes back, and you buy Vertex kit (which IMO is a good compromise between cost and quality). Shell out the difference, and write off the lost weekend as bad hair days. BTW there is a PM for you ref MEX Edited By meyrick griffith-jones on 04/11/2009 18:37:10 Edited By meyrick griffith-jones on 04/11/2009 18:39:35
David Clark 1	04/11/2009 19:09:32
3357 forum posts 112 photos 10 articles	Hi There I doubt you can send it back as you have modified it. First stage of checking any collet chuck is Forget the collets! Clock the bore of the collet holder. That needs to be true at the front and back internal faces. Then you can worry about the collets. Look at the back of the collet adaptor and decide which face is the mounting face. It will probably be the outer face. If it is, it will almost certainly be ground. As you have modified your mounting face, it may now be incorrect. The only way I see round this is to drill and tap the back plate for grub screws that bear on the inner back face of the collet holder. By adjusting the grub screws, you may be able to get the collet holder running true. Alternatively you may be able to true the back face up by mounting it on a true faceplate, nose to face plate with a long bolt through it and some blocks bolted to the faceplate to stop it floating around or moving. This assumes a true front face. regards David
chris stephens	04/11/2009 20:03:35
1049 forum posts 1 photos	Hi Circlip, How nice to hear from you. First off, The 20 or so collets I bought second hand, on impulse, with a spin indexer at a Watch and clock fair for £20, Even a parsimonious church mouse might consider buying at that price, not a case for "disposable income to burn" which implies throwing money at problems. The chuck was £80 new on special offer again not pricey, as I said in my post they are budget end products. I did not give anyone the chance to correct matters because I could not be bothered to send a large lump of metal back, with I suspect, no chance of getting anything better in return. I could have spent £150 at J&L for I suspect the same thing, but that was outside the range of readies I was prepared to pay for a little convenience. I can assure you that I can set something true in the four jaw chuck as fast as anyone and vastly faster than most, I keep DTI permanently fitted in a redundant 1 Morse QC Dixon holder for this very purpose. Oh dear, I have just realized that I could be accused of throwing money at a problem, after all, as the holder was redundant I could have flogged it on FeeBay and kept the dosh. I wanted to fit a collet chick not to speed up production time, pre se, but for convenience. I rather take pride in my ability to use my 4 Jaw quickly, but if I have a collet chuck that was as accurate I would not risk the screws and jaws wearing out prematurely. The box for the collet chuck clearly described the contents as "precision", how was I to know whether it was cheap because it was end of line, clearance or just cheap, it did come from an oriental machinery importer but one of the more reputable ones. I am sure that the great Modellers from the past would use some of the modern conveniences if they had been available to them, they clearly were not stupid. As an aside, did you see the article about Cherry Hill's workshop? I must admit that I have almost got a obsession for accuracy, and a passion for making a silk purse out of sow's ears. Anyone who does not make at least a passing nod to accuracy has no place in engineering. I am a firm believer in the adage that "A good engineer can do a lot with a little, but a bad engineer can do but a little with a lot!" I suppose the rider to that would be, a good engineer can do even more and quicker with a lot. I don't claim to be a good engineer, but I can overcome my other inadequacies with thought and experiment. When I get my chuck sorted it will, I assure you, be as accurate as a Crawford or Hardinge one but at a fraction of the price Just had a thought, I must tell all my watch maker friends that should stop using collets in their Lorchs and Boleys, because they are only using them to make more money for their bosses. What a world we live in! chris stephens
chris stephens	04/11/2009 22:07:16
1049 forum posts 1 photos	To John, 5C collets are, no sorry, should be made to a standard, but I do realize that accuracy costs. Your PGMS is one of those centreless grinding phenomenons where it is a constant diameter but not round, rather like a 50pence piece, but with three lobes. Not much you can do about it except make sure your next piece is cut from a different 3Metre length. Hi Tony, Thanks for your sympathies. The wobble or perhaps slackness would be a better word is entirely due to the clearance between collet and it mating surface. 2 thou clearance at one end of the collet, translates to quite a lot eight inches from the other end. Judicious use of a mallet would make the thing run dead true, well 1/2 thou out at eight inches is fine by me. Hi Meyrick, As usual we seem to be agreeing again. Hi David, My plan of action is to mount the the chuck on a dummy collet, which fits tightly. and skim the back so it is square to the bore. The chuck will be drilled in four points to intersect the rear bearing point of the collets. Into the holes will be put bronze inserts, these inserts will be dual diameter, the smaller dia will fit in reamed holes, the larger one will be the seating for a spring. This spring will keep the inserts out and in contact the the adjusting screws, which will be used to allow micro adjustments of the rear of the collet. With all these mods I should have the accuracy, I hope for. Hope the above makes some sort of sense. chris stephens
mgj	04/11/2009 22:38:31
1017 forum posts 14 photos	Chris - I don't have it quite in my mind how your system is going to work, but it seems very complex, when the problem seems to be limited to: 1. Too much clearance. 2 Potentially varying clearance. The problem is that - as I hope I see it right - by building in the ability/necessity to adjust - you are losing some of the convenience of collets. True running with no hassle. It becomes self defeating? If you are to maintain that ease of use, AND be VERY accurate then: Tackling it AAF, - the varying clearance. You have to get the collets to a common size. Then, having done that an internal sleeve, bored in situ becomes a good thing. Best thing is to mark up how the assembly was set, so you always install it same way. This is like boring spindles in their own bearings, or always using the preferred key slot for a chuck. I have ER collets. They are in general very accurate, but being compressible, sometimes, at the small size for that collet, trueness does take one or two attempts. My view is that its better to be approximately right than exactly wrong, So my accuracy tier goes 3 jaw, collets and then 4 jaw/3jaw Griptru when I really really mean business. Given how relatively little you paid for your set of collets, that might be an approach you may wish to consider? (Said he hinting heavily. ) (The Griptru is a great luxury - they are wonderfully expensive being made by Pratt and Burnerd. I bought mine along with various other goodies - like a screwcutting gearbox - from a place called Skilmans in Woolwich in 1984 when I bought the Myford. Skilmans had stopped being Myford agents a long time previously and I cleared their remaining stock at clearance prices. I feel no guilt. If I was going to buy another chuck now I would buy one of those extra precision 3 jaws by Bison, brand damn new. Keep it for high days and holidays. I wouldn't feel a lot of guilt about that either, not even for an 8" one for the Chinaman. I would merely thank my good fortune that I had one, and the bank manger for his kindness.) Not bad smilies these - even has a crinkly chip smile. Edited By meyrick griffith-jones on 04/11/2009 22:50:35 Edited By meyrick griffith-jones on 04/11/2009 22:53:24
chris stephens	04/11/2009 23:35:49
1049 forum posts 1 photos	Hi Meyrick, All but three of my collets are 1 thou under size, two are half a thou under and the third is 1.5 thou under. This last one is of a size that I don't often use, so can be dismissed or replaced. The two half a thou under can be, how can i put it, modified to size. I can feel a certain person already putting finger to keyboard to point out I am looking for accuracy and modifying one defeats the point. Well, he need not bother, real world problems need real world solutions., 100% accuracy is a goal but I will settle for a draw. So now I should have all my collets with the same dimension, where it matters. Next the chuck with my modifications (imagine a fixed steady but with four fingers,) will be adjusted to run true, at the size to fit the collets tightly. Once set, the collets should always go in and run true, just like a store bought one. As an Anzac I knew would put it. Well it makes sense to me, but what do I know? Not complicated at all , just needs four drilled and reamed holes, then counter-bored, then threaded for adjusting screws. It is already set up in four jaw on rotary table and four holes spotted at 90 degrees to each other. Had to stop and come in as it was getting too dark and cold out there this afternoon. Will finish tomorrow (?) Would have made an interesting article, but ME are not getting my photo. chris stephens
mgj	05/11/2009 18:22:54
1017 forum posts 14 photos	No, I can see, if you have all your collets to one size, then it should be a once only adjustment. Wrongly, I had this idea that you'd be making adjustments for several collets I like collets to fit t more than 4 points, but that won't matter if the work is not too heavy. I'm also very keen on boring things in situ/in there own bearings if possible. Just different ways of looking at the problem.
chris stephens	05/11/2009 22:46:46
1049 forum posts 1 photos	Hi Meyrick, If I did not make myself clear first time, you will have accept my apology for my poor use of English, which is not my native tongue. My first language is Gibberish. All the best, chris stephens
John Wood1	06/11/2009 16:53:09
116 forum posts	All the above makes fascinating reading. Leaving aside the purely technical bits I have come to the conclusion that the only way of ensuring the sort of accuracies which one needs is to fully understand the principles and, where at all possible, make your own equipment or learn how to true up commercial items. I too have been guilty of throwing money at some problems and have always been at the very least a bit disappointed. I do increasingly thumb through back issues of ME and take much notice of the various text books available, usually written before the advent of far eastern type equipment, I previously found it all too easy to dubb much of the information as outdated and often too much trouble to implement, when most can be done these days by chucking money at shiny new commercial gear - WRONG! I have recently made several items of workshop equipment from these 'older' designs, just to see how they turned out and, surprise surprise they have all been noticably better than similar items purchased new. Of course there are sources of good quality precision equipment, as mentioned above, but the prices are really beyond most of us. My philosophy now, when considering a problem is "can I do it adequately with what I have available? if not, how can I solve it myself? Delve into the information available to all of us and the answer is sure to be there, it will be cheaper and far more satisfying knowing that you have produced the required result by your own initiative. My thanks to all those who have commented above. I think I will emerge a better 'engineer' as a result. All the best John
chris stephens	06/11/2009 17:27:23
1049 forum posts 1 photos	Hi John, Clearly there is still hope for the world, when there are people about who have seen through the "buy it now" culture encouraged by the various media sources and society in general. In this day and age we are, it seems, encouraged to rely on others for most thing. As an engineer, whether new, self taught or retired time served "old hand, we have it in our hands to make most of what we need and to a standard of our own choosing. Granted there are well made and cheap, in relative terms, the trouble is knowing in advance that they are indeed well made and good value. There was a time when price indicated quality, and most manufacturers were honourable and did not charge quality prices for value items. Now you don't know if a cheap item is cheap because of modern mass production or cheap because it is substandard. Then again some dealers charge a quality price for the same cheap item, knowing that a lot of their customers would not know the difference. We (engineers) should be able to take cheap dross and refine it to a new and useful new life, just a shame we have to. Bottomless pocket owners can ignore the above and can they let me have their old machinery when the paint gets chipped and they have to replace it. Wisdom, hopefully, comes with age, certainly with experience, but then so does cynicism. End of rant Old fogeys of the world unite. chris stephnes
David Colwill	11/11/2009 18:01:50
782 forum posts 40 photos	I think that sooner or later we all get caught out with things like this I had a similar experience with a Denford Easiturn lathe where the 3 jaw chuck would not run true. after trying various other chucks borrowed from friends it became apparent that the cam loc locating taper was oversize. This on a British machine (it had obviously gone unnoticed by the school that owned it for the first twenty years of its life). I cannot see how it is possible to escape products made in the far east and anyway I don't really want to. I have had few really bad experiences with them and can afford to write them off against money saved on the good ones and still be well in profit. One other thing about Chiwanese products, I am sure that i heard one importer of such machines saying that Colchester CNC stuff was made in the same factory and can anyone tell me where Myford milling machines are made? The world seems to be full of people all saying that their products are fantastic etc etc ... They all lie and just because I'm paranoid it doesn't mean they aren't out to get me. Anyway you have my sympathies and I am sure you will get there in the end.
chris stephens	12/11/2009 00:46:49
1049 forum posts 1 photos	My fellow Machinists, Time for an update;- The story so far is that the four radial holes have been bored, well in truth I had to resort to using a solid carbide end mill. The very expensive cobalt drills would only go so far then met something hard, hence the mill. Once the four holes were drilled it was gratifying to note that a suitable sized pin would pass nicely through from one side to t'other. Shows rotary table (Japanese) and edge finder (of chiwanese origin) worked to a pretty fair standard. The next procedure was to counterbore the holes and tap them 7/16" X 40 for the adjusting screws. The hard nature of the chuck prevented much of a thread, and a new tap got well and truly stuck and snapped when trying to undo(guilty as charged) luckily the chuck was still in the rotary table, so out came another carbide end mill and with gentle feed the tap was "cored" and the rest fell out. That's two thanks due to JB cutting! Stage two of the "tuning" of the chuck involves making a dummy collet which is a tight fit in the chuck. The chuck was then fitted on the dummy collet whilst it was still in the four jaw and the rear face trued. The chuck was fitted to its back plate and the bore set to run true. The dummy collet was then pushed in and the projecting 3" turned true. Now for test one, the chuck and dummy collet were marked with Sharpie and the dummy was rotated 180 degrees and checked for run out. Would you believe spot boock on, great feeling of satisfaction and a resolution not to give up this engineering lark after all. Cries of "shame" will be ignored. Four bronze plugs were made to be a tight slidey fit in the four holes, and screw plugs fitted such that the bronze plugs protruded into the bore of the chuck which was then bored to the size of the parallel part of the 5C collet (in my case one thou under standard) Time for test two, fitting a collet and measuring run out. In truth, Curate's egg time. Run out was greatly** reduced and consistent but was variable depending on collet used! Some collets were with half a thou at chuck face and at six inches away. Others 1 thou at chuck and 5 odd at six inch away., disappointing! So, to sum up, chuck now fixed and has anybody out here got some brand new Crawford collets for a pittance? In reality i now have a collet chuck that is OKish to use as is, but is now rather like a slightly used Grip-tru chuck, it can me made to be very true but only for one size at a time. Now time to apply the criteria test for any remedial or development work. "What problem is this a cure for?" Well, the chuck ran out badly before and now runs better and for most purposes is within acceptable run out for most work. I still have the four jaw for spot on work and I could buy decent collets for the few sizes that I need to be accurate and held in a collet. chris stephens
john jennings 1	12/11/2009 15:25:15
69 forum posts	from John 1 About four years ago I bought spare E16 collet chuck from Chronos. On trying it out with a round HSS tool bank and on more than one machine it was clear that there was a pronounced wobble - visible to the naked eye! I asked for and got a replacement that had virtually unmeasurable runout ? It was completely unclear to me how the original chuck could have ended up like this (or how it had passed an inspection). The moral must be that it may not be your fault but that of the particular item in question,unless you are expecting an unreasonable level of accuracy. Above all check before irreversible "remedial action" is begun.
chris stephens	12/11/2009 17:43:42
1049 forum posts 1 photos	Hi John, The massive run out was a combination of two faults, the chuck and the collets. I now only have one fault, the collets. I had , falsely it seems, assumed that the collets would be accurate, more fool me! I would agree about your last statement, but the work done does nothing to stop the thing working, had I sawn it in half that might have been another story. I did get a measure of satisfaction from tuning the chuck, so was worth the effort. As a note, the bore and the outer surface were (and are still not) concentric, this should have told me something, I suppose., but at least it is now concentric to the lathe axis. chris stephens
Chris Trice	27/03/2010 23:55:08
1376 forum posts 10 photos	As a first time poster, another Chris with similar problems. I can sympathise entirely. I bought a budget 1/2" bore R8 collet from a forgotten dealer at a show that was so far out it wasn't funny. I ended up simply throwing it away rather than confuse it with the good ones. Like a previous poster, I can't see how this could possibly get past even the laxest quality control. I bought a set of expanding mandrels from a company who's name is reminiscent of part of a circle and they were best described as 'rough'. I couldn't in all honesty return them as faulty but the quality was very poor in that instance and IMPO not reminiscent of the finish they appeared to have in the catalogue. I bought a 6" rotary table from a company in Devon more at home with woodworking equipment, believing from the catalogue that it was a Vertex item only to discover it was a far eastern or indian copy of far inferior quality. It was adequate (just) for the job it was intended for but I still felt deceived even if by the letter of the law, I hadn't been. In all cases, had I known what I was going to receive, I wouldn't have bought. The upshot is that apart from these early sales, I'm extremely unlikely to return as a regular customer. However, the ironic thing is that these bad experiences have become learning experiences. I would now far rather buy quality branded good second hand tooling than touch the latest piece of metal from the Hokey Kokey P'nom Ping machine company, no matter how cheap. It's also made me perform remedial work to cheap disappointing bought items that, while not always successful, have taking me into areas of engineering I wouldn't otherwise have ventured. I'm not sure if that is a sufficiently satisfying result to offset the annoyance value and the time needed to be invested but it is a small silver lining to the dark cloud.

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