What shaft collets do you recommend?

Guerra Cues

Guerra Cues

I build one cue at a time
Silver Member
Hello,
I have a mid-size Hightower lathe that I use for small repairs and I have not found a collet that I like as of yet.
- One actually puts a mark on the shaft and is not that tight on the shaft
- Another one just got it recently and when I bring the tip down actually does not hold the shaft in place (yes it is tight)
What collets do you use, what are your suggestions?
 
Hello Tony:
If the work your doing is not that critical I use a clear rubber tubing. Does not mark up shaft at all.
Ron
 
Tony,
I use 3M masking tape. I start by wraping the tape 4 times around evenly so there is an even surface. It is more acurate and cheeper than plastic collets and 3M makes their tape a consistant thickness.
 
patrickjuhlin said:
Tony,
I use 3M masking tape. I start by wraping the tape 4 times around evenly so there is an even surface. It is more acurate and cheeper than plastic collets and 3M makes their tape a consistant thickness.
Click to expand...

Are you talking about the blue painter's tape? Seems like the "for fragile surfaces" might be a good choice.

?

Gary
 
BENFICA said:
Hello,
I have a mid-size Hightower lathe that I use for small repairs and I have not found a collet that I like as of yet.
- One actually puts a mark on the shaft and is not that tight on the shaft
- Another one just got it recently and when I bring the tip down actually does not hold the shaft in place (yes it is tight)
What collets do you use, what are your suggestions?
Click to expand...

Try making your own out of Teflon. Make several sizes, i.e, 12.75 mm, 13 mm
and so on. I make 2 radial cuts so I can open them like a hinge. Teflon will
not mark the shaft.
 
I for the life of me cannot see why any human who expects to do cue repair or building would have to buy collets. There is no operation in working on cues that is easier or cheaper. 1 inch Delrin is about 5.00 a foot. That is enough to make about 15 shaft collets. 1.5 inch is around 10.00 a foot for all of your butt collets. If it takes longer than 5 minutes to make a collet you either need a lot of practice on a lathe or you need to maybe take up bowling instead of cue repair.

Dick
 
> I wasn't going to say that,but RHN is right,especially if you have a Hightower machine or a full sized lathe. They wouldn't even be that big a pain to make on a mini-lathe where you only have a 5/8 hole in the chuck.

The hardest part of the lathe work is getting a boring bar small enough to do the work,and getting it set up. It shouldn't take more than 4 minutes.

Center-drill nice and deep,and use a sharp 7/16 drill bit to make your pilot hole,and from there just sneak up on your dimensions.

I put 3 splits in mine,so they work like a 3-jaw chuck with plastic jaws. I indicated the first 20-30 shafts I ran thru my main collet,and was within .001 in just about every case. That is way better than needed for tip installs. 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.

Make sure you deburr the insides too.

The problem you will find with buying prefab collets is that the prefabs may have been made on a machine that runs dead-nuts,and then you try and use them on your machine that has a little slop in it,and the next thing you know you have .005 runout. Tommy D.
 
Prefab Collets

Hi,

Tommy is so right and is describing a problem that haunted me for a long time. We made our collets split on both sides like he described. We changed to a six jaw Bison Chuck and adjusted it to less than .001 run out because I wanted better joint alignment.

Our collets were bored on the three jaw. We changed to the 6 jaw because I was not satisfied with our run our number to begin with. I thought by having a chuck I could adjust would solve my problems.

After the chuck change I noticed that my joints were even more excentric and you could feel a slight step on either side with your fingernail. This drove me nuts as I spent all this money for the six jaw so that I could get a better joint alignment and now it was worse.

After talking to my friend Darrin Hill and some machinist pros who play on my pool leagues I found out what Tommy is advising. If you bore a collet it will have the same concentric values as your chuck. If you buy a collet or make a change to your chuck you can amplify the relative eccentricity even though both chucks were in close tolerances.

To solve my problem I had grind my jaws with a diamond coated abrasive tool with the shank mounted in my tool post in a rotary tool head. I bought a 3 1/2" ID precision made shaft collar and mounted the ID on the outside jaws to hold the chuck open tight. This made my inside jaws open to about the dimension of my joint. I then took my time and bored my chuck true and concentric with my spindle bore.

After placing a dowel pin in the chuck I was able to indicate a run out error of less than half a thousand all day. That made me feel awesome because I want every shaft that comes out of my shop to fit every cue I produce. After machining, sealing, sanding, finishing, wet sanding, and buffing if you are off by .002 it won't be noticed if you are perfectly concentric.

After doing this soft jaw procedure I had to re bore my collets so that they were running true with my new set up. This gets back to Tommy's post about buying pre made collets. You have to tickle them with your boring bar before you cut the splits in them. I made brand new collets for my joint size and the size that I use for puting in my shaft insert.

I hope that this post helps anyone who might be experiencing the problem I had because I lost a lot of sleep over it. Before you can solve a problem you must first understand its nature!!!

Rick Geschrey
Esoteric Cue
 
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We are steering off-topic a bit here, but I wanted to chime in on using soft jaws.

For most chuck brands, they can be purchased quite cheeply (MSC, McMaster-Carr etc.). In fact, for less than the cost of a six-jaw, you can get several sets of 3 soft jaws for the chuck you already have.

Boring the jaws to various diameters (and most critical: numbering the soft jaws so they go back on exactly the same place) allows you a level of precision very dificult to surpass, plus as an added bonus, no jaw marks (normally) because the inner jaws are smooth!

Bear in mind, if your ways are severly workn, you will not reap the full benefit of this.

Another tid-bit from the old master tool and die makers out back: If you want to run on DEAD center at the chuck end, chuck on a bar and turn a 60 degree point on it. Any and all variance from absolute center is removed as long as that center is not removed from the chuck (this assumes your headstock bearings are not shot too...). If you have to remove it, just take a freash taper cut on it after you re-install it.:wink:

Making the chuck run 'perfect' is great, but these two old-school 'tricks' are how the old-timers got serious precision on older equipment which did not have adjustable chucks and cool stuff like that that the newer equipment does.

This is one of the reasons I get annoyed when people say 'you have to get this' or 'you have to do it this way' because it is very likely that someone already did it before your grandfater was born. Hell, we went to the moon with slide rulers and vacuum tubes! Don't tell me you need a CNC lathe to make a pool cue!:D
 
Another tid-bit from the old master tool and die makers out back: If you want to run on DEAD center at the chuck end, chuck on a bar and turn a 60 degree point on it. Any and all variance from absolute center is removed as long as that center is not removed from the chuck (this assumes your headstock bearings are not shot too...). If you have to remove it, just take a freash taper cut on it after you re-install it.
Then you will have to use a lathe dog .
 
I slip a small piece of playing card inbetween the shaft & the collet. This will protect the shaft from getting dented...JER
 
Hey CueGuru,
You are giving away trade secrets, even if they seem obvious.

We have cut down jaws and some have acetyl or brass shoes.
I noticed today at work, the new generation have no idea of what precision toolmaking was like 25 years ago. It seems that the new equipment and software takes away alot of what used to be basic knowledge, so much so ,that they don't even know how to hold a component to make it.
Some of this loss of knowledge is due to schools no longer teaching the basics any more.
Proof of this is people asking what would seem to be basic knowledge.
But people have to learn and I am glad that they do ask the obvios rather than assume and ruin a good pool cue.
So keep asking and help will arrive. Libraries have lots of good basic maching books that realy should be a must for people learning to make cues or to machine anything.
Neil Lickfold
 
conetip said:
snip...
Proof of this is people asking what would seem to be basic knowledge.
But people have to learn and I am glad that they do ask the obvios rather than assume and ruin a good pool cue.
snip...
Neil Lickfold
Click to expand...

Another thing to remember is that some cue makers are NOT machinists by trade, and what is common knowlege for some, is not for others. I, for example, am a computer systems engineer by day. I roll my eyes when people ask how to post or resize pictures here, because to me, that should be common knowlege when participating in an on-line community. We all have our areas of expertise, and I'm grateful to those as willing to share as I am.
Mr H
 
conetip said:
Hey CueGuru,
You are giving away trade secrets, even if they seem obvious.

We have cut down jaws and some have acetyl or brass shoes.
I noticed today at work, the new generation have no idea of what precision toolmaking was like 25 years ago. It seems that the new equipment and software takes away alot of what used to be basic knowledge, so much so ,that they don't even know how to hold a component to make it.
Some of this loss of knowledge is due to schools no longer teaching the basics any more.
Proof of this is people asking what would seem to be basic knowledge.
But people have to learn and I am glad that they do ask the obvios rather than assume and ruin a good pool cue.
So keep asking and help will arrive. Libraries have lots of good basic maching books that realy should be a must for people learning to make cues or to machine anything.
Neil Lickfold
Click to expand...

Today if you tell someone he's not really turning " between centers" on a chucked-up cylinder ( instead of using a dead center and a dog ) , you might get a bad look.
 
JoeyInCali said:
Then you will have to use a lathe dog .
Click to expand...


Not necessarily.

If you are taking 'hog cuts' (which is generally not a good idea on a long thin piece of anything) or you cannot apply sufficient pressure with your live center in your tail stock, this might be a problem.

With a router cutting, or light cuts (a few thousandths per pass) it is not a problem at all.

If you feel the need, after you turn your cone, take the die grinder or dremmel and cut grooves in the fresh center for a bit of 'grip' or use a piece of sand paper in between.
 
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