I get a lot of inquiries asking, “how much expansion can you get from our expanding collets”? Most expanding collets that are activated by a screw pulling back into the front taper of a collet will only have a maximum expansion of .010”. The reason being, if the collet is expanded beyond .010”, you will…
When considering the purchase of a CNC lathe or turning center, it is important to ensure that the workholding system is matched to both the machine’s capabilities and the type of work that it will be doing. For example, the workholding system for a large-bore oil-patch lathe that will be machining pipe threads is…
We are now stocking Steel Full Circle Jaws for Kitagawa B-210 style chucks (S65-10-P2). We have sold these in the past, but never kept inventory on them. Being that we had been getting more request, we decided to have inventory on hand for immediate delivery. These jaws are identical to our Aluminum Full Circle Jaws,other…
We recently received a request to machine a custom Expanding Collet to fit the ID of a plastic part. The only thing that was unusual about this, is that the part could not come into contact with the entire face that it was locating on. To achieve this, we simply tree panned a face groove…
New!!! Order Directly From Our Website It’s never been easier to order Scientific Cutting Tools (SCT) online than it is now. Through the Rovi website, you’ll be able to order the exact part you need faster than ever. If you would like to see how easy the process is, please click here. Find the tool…
Boring Soft Jaws The following is an article that was published by Modern Machine Shop, and written by Mike Lynch Founder and President, CNC Concepts Inc. I liked it, so I thought I would share. “For external clamping, subtract the amount of material you’ll be removing from the jaw from the diameter just determined.…
From time to time, we get requests to make special Chuck Jaws (to fit a customer’s specifications). An example would be an application that requires a jaw that is larger than what we sell off the shelf. We can create custom make jaws up to 9” tall out of steel or aluminum for those applications…
How do you know what is the correct Tool Holder Bushing to use on your Lathe Turret? Being that we are a provider of Tool Holder Bushings, I get a number of inquiries about this topic. In my opinion, there isn’t one correct answer. Picking the correct bushing has a lot to do with the…
Every year I get a few calls where a customer needs to grab the ID of a part, but they don’t have a collet chuck or just can’t justify the cost of a complete Expanding Collet Assembly for the one job they’re working on. I usually will suggest that they use a set of Aluminum…
Every so often I am asked if we offer our expanding collets with a rubber seal that fits into the slots. The purpose for this would be to eliminate chips from getting into the slots. Metal chips, in some instances, can get stuck in the slots of the expanding collet. This can possibly prevent the…
I get a few phone calls from customers every year regarding breakage issues with our Expanding Collets or the collet growing to the point that you can no longer get the part on the collet. Read on for a couple of simple solutions to these two problems. Let’s begin with the breaking problem: 99.9% of…
My customer, Michael, called the other day regarding an issue with runout of a collet on a lathe. He explained to me that he was using an expanding collet on a pullback style collet chuck, but was unable to get the collet to run true. After going over all the steps on how to properly…
There are several different methods to use when machining collets to your desired size. Please note that it’s very important to seat a collet into the spindle prior to machining. Expand the collet between .003”-.005” depending on how much the inside diameter of the part varies. Listed below are a few options to choose from:…
Here’s the advantages of a 5C Collet Chuck vs. a 16C or a 3J: The through hole capacity of a 5C collet chuck is 1-1/16”, whereas a 16C is 1-5/8” and a 3J is 1-3/4”. Now, this may sound like the 16C and 3J may be a better choice due to the larger through hole,…
I received a call today from my customer, John, who needs a stop to locate in his drawtube of his lathe to position a 16” long part on his z-axis. John informed me that this is the first operation of this part and he has a 16C Pullback Style collet chuck. I recommended the following:…
