What shaft collets do you recommend?

conetip said:
Hey CueGuru,
You are giving away trade secrets, even if they seem obvious.

Neil Lickfold
Click to expand...

Well, I am not a machinisst by trade. I do a lot of manual machine operation as part of my job however.

The point is, when I am told the best way to do a machining operation by the tool and die makers out back (and there are only two left, both approaching retirement), I keep my ears and eyes wide open and mouth shut (unless I need clarification).

I also raslize that the master model maker is fast becoming a lost art. They see it too by the way.

As older CNC lathes become more affordable to the smaller machine shops, we will see it decline even further and faster.

One of my favorite books explains it pretty well: Atlas Shrugged.

I am doing what I can to preserve these 'secrets', and get them into the hands of guys who can use it. Think of how much was lost when (coming back to cues) George passed. Then Gus. Then Burton. (and others I am not mentioning) Sure- information, techniques and equipment was passed on to the next generation, but what about the untapped potential of those brilliant minds? I wonder about the "what might have been" from these great men sometimes, and who is carrying the torch now to be the innovators and set the standards for the next 50 years or so in cue making?

Sory, I got abit out of control there, but this is something I am passionate about- the basic decline of society into a bunch of fat, lazy do-nothings who push green buttons and wait for {insert item here} to fall out the end.

And this is not directed toward anyone here, just my opinion.
 
shaft collets

Call me if you need some help with your collets. You are welcome to come by and I will make you a set (nylon or delryn), if you are in So Cal any time soon, Kent. (951) 545-0549.
 
KD Cues said:
Call me if you need some help with your collets. You are welcome to come by and I will make you a set (nylon or delryn), if you are in So Cal any time soon, Kent. (951) 545-0549.
Click to expand...

Thanks guys. Already talked to my somewhat neighbor Kent ;) and I am all set.
Thanks for all the input guys.
 
Old Timers all become dinosaurs

Dear Cue Guru,

I am a short timer to Azbilliards "Ask the Cue Maker" but in my short experience I have come to relalize that at lot of you guys really know your stuff and I have appreciated your comments and have learned from them. Atlas Schrugged is also one of my favroite books but I do think we need to show respect and learn form the old timers.

Ayn Rand who wrote Atlas Shrugged makes a great points in her masterpiece novel. I believe her objectivist philosophy would be concurrent with the CNC stuff taking out the old timers as human beings tend to inject subjective bias and even a little rationalization in their attitudes in the workplace.

John Gault was not against technology. He was fighting tyranny that comes from an evil collective thinking prevalent in a government that was taking over the free enterpise businesses. Geeze, is there a parallel with the Leftist Obama shit we see today. It is a happy day for Immanuel Kant.

The computer is completely objective and is only as good as the guy who programs the part. The end result is better parts made faster at a lower labor cost. Guess who's going to win this battle in the marketplace.

Old timer's jobs will be replaced by a new breed of CNC machinist, engineers, and computer guys and is an example of natural selection and evolution. I too am guilty of sentiment and nostalgia for the bygone eras. However, in a capitalistic society that won't buy you a cup of joe. Your either growing and rolling with the punches or your going to the bone yard.

That's why the old timers are doomed unless they make the transition or make specialize niche parts that need to be done by hand, one at a time. Cue Makers are in the niche market. Every CNC shop still has a basic lathes & mills ect. and I think they always will have a need for one talented guy who does it old school.

We need to show respect to these Master Machinists, Mold and Tool Makers and learn what we can before their all gone. After all, they learned and applied their crafts in an era where the old timers before them never wanted to give up and knowledge to the young guys due to fear of being replaced. They learned in the school of hard knocks. My partner is one of these guys that made the transition through education and I understand where he is coming from.

With CNC writing on the wall the fear is gone as capitulation has now set in. Since most Cue Makers don't use the CNC equipment to do the basic construction, the art and handcraft factors are still present in this trade. Let's face it, people will not pay over a thousand dollars for a cue made of green wood in China. They will pay it for a handcrafted cue made with seasoned hand picked materials by the great American Cue Makers who have a reputation for quality.

In the final analysis this forum is the greatest thing for cue makers because they can share information and mistakes so all can learn or weigh in with their comments or disagreements. John Gault would like Azbilliards "Ask the Cue Maker".

Rick Geschrey
Esoteric Cue
 
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You hit it right on the head, Rick.

Although you are of course absolutely correct with the parallels you have drawn, I was looking more toward the man himself- one who takes the pride in his work regardless of how it is done. The man who does what he does not for the praise or adoration of those around him, not to be the best or the fastest or the cheapest or most expensive; but rather driven from within to do the absolute best he can do for himself. Dennis Searing comes to mind. Although I have not met the man, I suspect he is very exacting in what he does (based on his work) and does not particularly care if anyone else likes or dislikes what he does. I bet he has some aspect of every cue he has made that he is not totally satisfied with as well if you asked him. Barry Szamboti is a lot like this too (with a short temper added for flavor). I feel I am the same way. I am not happy with the first cue I made, but I learned a lot from doing it. The next one will be better. And the next better than that, but I will always find fault with my own work. Perfection is an elusive goal...

I am not against CNC at all; I am however against the idea that CNC is somehow superior or more accurate than doing things the old-fashioned way. Those who have the desire and ingenuity to make it happen, will. The others will not. George Balabushka, although he was a master wood worker beforehand, made some leaps and bounds in cue technology for the time based on what he figured out on his own for the most part. He did not have a chat room to bounce ideas off- he just tried it, and if it worked to his satisfaction, he did it that way. He might have called a colleague to share an idea and collect one in return, but it was such a black art back then, perhaps not even that was done. We have a great resource at our disposal here...

Recently I was in an argument with a maker on here who insisted that the inlay work done today is better than that of the past. When I brought up the amazing craftsmanship done in Japan over 100 years ago it was shrugged off as light inlay in ebony with colored glue.

I know that is/was not true from first hand experience, but sometimes you cannot get that across to some people. I recently saw a 1800's desk from Japan with a ton of ivory inlay in an antique shop. Be damned if you could find a glue line in this ROSEWOOD (not dark ebony) table. It was absolutely magnificent, and quite intricate as well with the trees etc.

Anyway, I guess the point is, I absorb all the information like a sponge, boil it down, and write it down so I do not loose it for myself. When my shop is up and running again, I will put these ideas to the test, and see how I do with them. Some will work, some won't. But I will learn, and I would like to share what I learn myself to give back to this community that I have learned from.
 
> This is the exact reason I took a machining course,plus the added benefit of,at the time anyway,of getting a good job so the cuemaking aspect of what I want to do can take care of itself. I can call myself a machinist now,being well-versed on manual and self-taught to run CNC lathes and mills,having graduated. The problem is,I can't find a job within 100 miles.

I already knew about the dead-center trick. The only truer way to turn stuff is maybe out of a dead-nuts collet system.

I picked up on all kinds of manual stuff. There are a bare minimum of things I'd need to be shown how to set up.

All I need is wood,materials,a few machines,and a place to put it,LOL. Tommy D.
 
A bit off topic from collets , but they had pantograph technology in the late 1800's to make quite acurate and repeatable profiles. But the skill required to make it work perfect was very high indeed.
Keep in mind, that in the early years of manufacturing, things like accurate micrometers were few and far between.Particularly before 1850, Most used clipers , either internal or external to measre and make parts with.Setting them off a reference part for comparison.
But collets and veriation of collets were used early on in engineering as chucks were either very expensive or not accurate enough.
Neil
 
When making collets, or bushings, or any other part where you want the ID and the OD to be as concentric as possible, you must turn both the ID and the OD in the same holding setup. This means you can't use pre-made bushings and take a skim cut on the inside. Sure that is better than nothing, but it won't come close to matching the concentricity obtained by turning the ID and OD in the same setup.

Another thing you must do is use SHARP tools. You can sharpen HSS better than carbide. This will work better on the plastics that are a bit softer (like teflon, and UHMW). If you don't have sharp tools, you will be pushing instead of cutting material. This is especially true when boring the ID, since the boring bar is not very rigid to begin with.
 
Tommy-D said:
> I put 3 splits in mine,so they work like a 3-jaw chuck with plastic jaws. ....... The splits I cut were done on a mill using a hexagon-shaped 5C collet block,and a 1/8 ball nosed end mill for the cutting. I cut a slot clean thru about 1/2 long,then rotated the collet block 2 positions then repeated 2x.
Click to expand...

Picture's worth a thousand words!
Post a pic if you can.

Frank
 
> I can't take any pics of the setup,but can give a step by step procedure.

I made mine with a .750 shoulder,with the main diameter .625. I then put a 5/8 5C collet into the hex collet block. Using the vise that was already installed on the mill,I used an edge finder and the machines DRO to find the center of the block,and set the Y to 0. In this setup,the collet block is sticking out about an inch from the left side of the vise.

I touched off on the top of the plastic,which is sticking out about 3/4 from the face of the 5C collet. I took a .025 deep cut,using the knee for height adjustment,and hand-fed the table .500 in the X axis,then backed off to 0 and repeated until the cut went clean thru that side. I have a kind of odd 1/8 carbide end mill that has a 5/8 DOC,as opposed to the typical 3x diameter. I chose to use it because I saw that with a typical end mill,that when I got close to the depth I wanted,I would be running into problems with the shank of the end mill. The extra 1/4 in length in the flutes of this end mill solved that.

Once I got the slot cut,I simply opened the vise and rotated the block 2 flat spots toward the back jaw,and repeated the sequence. Once I cut the second slot,I repeated the rotation sequence and cut the 3rd slot. This could also have been done using a indexing head,one cut at 0,a 2nd cut at 120 degrees,and a third at 240 degrees.

On the inside of my collet,I used a small boring bar I made from a broken end mill and cut a 2 degree taper on the back side,to about 1/2 the length. I cleaned it up with a piece of 220,then 400. The backside of the collet has no bearing on what happens out front when doing this,because the only part that touches the shaft is the 1/2 out in front. With this particular collet,I have .020 adjustability,and nice repeatability as well. Tommy D.
 
That's a fancy collet, but the better your tooling, the beter your product.

Good for you man!
 
Collets

Hi,

Collets are haunting me. I never turned my ODs!!!! I better take another look at my procedure. The teflon rod is extruded and is not perfect. I never factored it in. Back to the drawing board.

I want a collet chuck in my next lathe that will be dedicated to only precision work.

Thanks for the details,

Rick Geschrey
Esoteric Cue
 
Collet chucks rule.

The Hardinge Super-Precision is made for collets, with an optional 'buck' scroll chuck you can spin over the outside of the spindle, and the two Sheldon's have quick-change chuck plates and are equipped with colet chucks too.

The great thing is, even the cheapest Taiwan collets witll blow the doors off most six-jaw chucks for acuracy. The Hardinge branded collets are even better still. Way too good for what we do!

But, if you can use the collet chuck, DO IT! It is totally worth it, although you have to change collets a lot, unlike the mega-buck Pratt-Burnerd where you get a wider range of size from each 'collet-thingy' what ever they call those inserts they use. But I prefer to be able to tighten the collet by hand and not need to use a chuck key too.:thumbup:
 
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