hey tony, just wanted to thank you for getting me involved in a field where i am now working in machining! nothing better than turning raw stock into scrap metal
Very cool! I'm still at the talent level of turning bigger pieces of metal in to smaller metal pieces. Hopefully by the end of the year, I'll be able to produce some fine scrap metal myself. 😉😂
Me too. Honestly 3 er 4 years ago I got interested in making things found TOT and Stephen, nyccnc etc. Didn't have any way to even touch machine tools, but had aspirations. Then covid happened, lost my salaried chef job, then got lucky and got a cnc operators certificate on the very last round of tech grants. Got a job at an established shop specializing in repair jobs for steel and paper mills amongst anything else here in Portland. I'm an assembler, but I have been taught manual Blanchard, od, I'd grinding, gear hobbing. It wasn't what I was hired for...... but I'm grateful. All thanks to fun content that gave myself a better understanding and interest to concepts I was only acutely aware of due to growing up in the ex automotive heart of America. Thanks Tony!
My current job is as an accountant for a manufacturer. I don't step anywhere near a metal fabrication shop. You just explained to me why the collets my machinists are purchasing are so expensive. Thank you Tony!
glad to see an accountant actually learning instead of just making expense decisions on a whim without having any awareness of what kind of equipment is required. Good on you, fr.
i wish i had office people like you ... our guys don't even think about speeds and feeds and end up in shock when we tell them we almost caught the machine on fire (cnc routing wood)
Oh my goodness what a timely video!! I've been cutting some parts recently and am repeatedly breaking the small endmills. Nothing I tried was making it work. Came across this video and decided it was worth a try. Replaced my 1/8" collet today and the machine has been running flawlessly for a couple hours now. THANK YOU!
Thank you for these really wonderful videos. I'm not a machinist, I am a retired software developer who has 30 hobbies in his garage, house and yard. I'm allergic to nonsense and junk -- so I do appreciate your periodic antidote videos.
I stopped buying Starrett hair gel when I lost my hair a couple of decades ago. I was suddenly flush with cash and able to purchase quality collets. Thanks for this video Tony. The level of quality(price) is always part of the equation and sometimes regrettable sacrifices are made.
I've been a machinist for 3 years now. Seeing that correlation between chip load and run out explains so much when it comes to some of our smaller endmills snapping seemingly at random. I might have to make it a point to do away with some of our old worn out collets. I am in charge of our tooling.
even if you're using good quality tools, being able to validate their spec somehow seems really useful. It's not uncommon for people seasoned in their job to become complacent to errors / issues.
I highly recommend going through every tool and throwing it in the trash, until you can achieve .00001" on the Mitutoyo dial indicator (don't use that cheap Chinese crap). Until then, you're just pretending to be a machinist.
@@PabloEdvardo ToT made it a bit simpler than the actual situation by assuming the collet's work holding (eccentric) axis was nevertheless parallel to the machine spindle's axis of rotation. In real life that's unlikely, in which case the tip of the tool may be orbiting three or four times as much as the shank where he measured it. It's a little more difficult to measure runout accurately once you get to the cutting part of an end milling cutter, but it's important to clock the runout close to the business end.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - I have no affiliation with metalworking or any actual interest in doing it myself, but every time you post a video I smile and put the kettle on. Always a great watch, and I'm sure this one will be too.
Me too. I just stumbled on this channel maybe a couple months ago and I find myself daily watching 6 year old videos. I heard Adam Savage mention TOT a few days ago. Makers enjoy makers I guess. Doesn't matter the discipline.
Haha i would double upvote if i could. Its another instant classic. You are like this cool, weird uncle i never had that knows all about his profession. Thanks for teaching stuff in a funny, easy understandable way. You are an idol and i admire you. Keep up the work, you are fantastic!
Hi Tony, I am a retired fitter and turner and worked for Seco Tools for 28 years here in New Zealand and we made a range of different collets and chucks etc. Tool run out is so important as you have explained and it really doesn't matter what size cutter you are using, unbalanced tool wear will show up. Its the same old question/answer, when you buy cheap you get cheap, no matter what it is. Side lock holders are the cheaper way to go where the tool run out is minimal and good for most applications. Many older machinist who have been around for a while will remember when Clarkson released their range of FC3 cutters. FC3 cutters were small HSS cutters up to 1/4 inch or 6 mm and were held in a side lock holder. They worked well. Hope this helps. Cheers Ian
Your sense of humour never fails 🤣 I'm not a machinist myself, but I work in engineering research and I must say, being a regular viewer of your videos taught me a lot and has made me look much more experienced at work than I really am 🤣I'll owe some of my next raise to you !
May I also say Find And view CEE " Cutting Edge Engineering " Australian Engineering You Tube Channel Australian Young Guy , His Wife , Their Dog .... Milling , making , Fabrication , Fixing , Welding ..... Big machinery , Parts , .... etc Worth the Viewing Thanks for reading " What man makes , He Destorys , then Refabricates " Thank you ToT
Hey Tony, there are 2 parts to your videos, the content which is always amazing. Then there is all the post video graphics, modelling and general make the video ‘super interesting to watch’, ‘stuff’. For all that sir, we truly thank you. PS Your tee sharts (as you know who would say😉) are washing and wearing very well. Kindest regards from Bonnie Scotland. Joe.
As a retired electrical design engineer, a trip to the techs and some of the other disciplines that apply, early in design phases, can make you look a bit smarter, too. For me it was packaging guys, dynamicists, thermal, etc. as an electrical design engineer. Frequently I got asked where I was in the process from them, and I said 'not far', and they just looked at me funny. They were used to getting contacted when the shit had already hit the fan, in test and integration, where changes, at least in the military aerospace world, were far more expensive. I worked with some scientific/engineering researcher types a few times, and was usually in awe. One guy was designing materials from a molecular level, pretty much before that was a thing, and he could predict properties with fairly amazing accuracy, most of the time. The problem was he was BRILLIANT at that, and CLUELESS about how to make any of it producible. He was making materials that could be used in soft contact lenses that would sit out on a table for days without drying out. It's been a long time, but IIRC that was both a materials problem, and some surface geometry for further improvement. This was several decades ago. Now I'm sure it's SOP, at a much higher level. Did you see the moldable transparent plastic that was developed recently, with something like 12X the strength to weight of steel, INCREDIBLY impact resistant, very low porosity (small molecule, high pressure distribution systems), etc? Supposedly easily scalable to large production, with relatively minor process changes, and they predict uses all the way from STRUCTURAL building components (can you imagine looking into some skyscraper support structure and being able to see through it?), to space station windows (now VERY expensive and easily scratched sapphire, I think), to cars, to a LOT of things. If you saw the Star Trek movie, with Scotty giving out the transparent aluminum formula, they just demolished every aspect of that material. As often happens, Star Trek got it VERY close. :-) I am really hoping this tech is not another 'eternal technology of the future', like practical fusion power generation (so far, and for the immediate future, almost certainly). Oh yeah, the plastic gets those properties from a process developed for 3D lattice connections between layers, which apparently was doable before, but only for very short distances, until the process collapsed. Now they can just make sheets of it, apparently, or soon anyway, I can't keep up with anything, anymore, makes my eyes cross and my hair hurt, what's left of it, at my age. Truly amazing, and in every field you can think of, and more. Sometimes I am thankful for the back door of death coming in probably 20 years or so, and other times I think it would be cool to see the future, even though much of Fl won't be habitable for more than aquatic life, and other such problems, and relatively soon. Wow, that got off topic. My brain does that, and my filters have apparently all stopped functioning.
"Let's assume we're the sort of machinists who doesn't get hung up on exact dimensions" - That was the joke that pushed me over the edge on this one, well done sir!
@@ThisOldTony any tips on stuck collet holder's and stuck drils and endmills... When i try to get my endmill out , it's stuck. , i tried oil and grease but even then hard to get out ..... I asked a seccond hand machine dealer but he doesnt vidle around with the smallest conus. Most of my gear says , its german or made in the ddr , ... Only the collet holder... Has some brand on it i hardly can read
@@evanbarnes9984 blondihacks made me realize that hobby machining is not for me. she sure makes it looks excruciating and time consuming with not much reward for the effort and money.
Well tot, tonight I tapped my first hole. 1/4" npt. I've got you to thank for the angle grinder, welder, and everything else related to metal working I now have, acquired over several tough years. Thanks man
Your writing always gives me the chuckles but it's the editing that really makes me pause the video to laugh. No one has better placed, harder cuts than this particular old Tony
Hi Tony Just noticed 1 more thing that will mess your runout up,at 16:51 when you unscrew your colletnut you can see that the collet is twisted,if you check the slits in the collet they are not all the same size and they should be,the collet is not slipping in the nut and holder at the same rate when you tighten it. Just to add more complexity to the sphincterholding of tools ;).
collet quality aside, the proper torque values are really important. It is especially easy to over-torque small collets which can cause them to skew or warp slightly
@@zitt Torque for a given collet will always be the same regardless of manufacturer simply because of the geometry of the collet. What changes torque values more than anything is using different types of collet nuts.
@@mikeybeamish I would expect your ER wrench to be a standard imperial or metric size. I have a "hobby grade" CNC with a huanyang spindle and ER20 collets. The wrenches I use are 23mm and 30mm. You should be able to find a suitable crow's foot.
By God Tony, this explains the massive variation in the amount of engraving I get with those tiny God damned needle point cutters. I went and checked the alignment with the dial gauge and it was a 0.1mm misalignment. I found a position between the collet and the shaft that ends up at around 0.01 and the purr is gone. Thank you so much!!!!
Good video, as a old guy getting into hobby mills, tiny bits of information like this can really help with troubleshooting, honestly would have taken me ten time as long as your wife did to figure this out on my own
My hobby is woodworking, but some of the same rules apply. My Dad taught me to buy quality tools. I don’t have enough money to buy the cheap stuff. “Buy once, cry once”, is so accurate. Thanks for a great video!
I hate it when I'm working on something and my drill dies, then I gotta hold the trigger in and spin around the bench. It's worse when it happens while I m hanging drywall...
@Will Swift Potentially, but that entire time you're also working with tools that don't perform as well. I also generally prefer to spend money with the people who try to do a good job with what they manufacture rather than hoping to sell you 10 of the same flawed thing when the others break.
I still believe in "buy cheap, if it breaks, buy expensive" because there are actually a handful of tools that I literally used just once, then there are others that were cheap but are surprisingly good. I saved money by buying cheap stuff for those. Only some things where I know I'm gonna use it a ton, I bought the good things right away, like with my table saw.
Hi Tony, another great video. Yes I have a set of chinese ER32 collets and yes they have run out, I found loads of swarf left in the slots when I inspected them, stops them closing up equally. I cleaned them up somewhat and this helped. Another trick I found which helped was to rework the collet by putting it in the collet chuck on the lathe without a piece of work and close them right up and dress them with some tool steel rod and abrasive paste. That helped and I now have a set of fairly acurate ER32 collets. I tried the same trick with ER11 though and they are just junk, even after remachining the collet. I must keep my eyes open for some 2nd hand decent ones. Thanks you for all you video's Tony, I look forward to each of your productions.
Tried to make my wife watch this gem with me to explain why I'm sinking a ton of holding into my tool fund. She's still giggling about the sphincter joke, so we're not done yet.
Tony, being I was a machinist in the tool and die trade I have a good appreciation for your channel. I moved into engineering when all the work in my area moved away. Now I just do machining at home as a hobby. We are in this predicament today (loss of manufacturing and garbage import products) because of corporate greed moving all their manufacturing to China. Now we have crap tools made of Chinesium that don't measure up to what they are supposed to. You may be able to tune those cheap collets up just by removing those burrs.
Thats not corporate greed. Thats called "Too much government Tax". A company has to make a profit or it won't survive. If you can pay 8% tax here and 28% there then the company would stay here versus there. Governments can either attract business or they can run them off and the U.S is certainly running them off!
My solution to cheap er collets was to buy two sets. After deburring and testing them I ended up with 19 acceptable collets, seven duplicates in the set of 12, I then purchased a “good” one to fill out the complete set to 12. $3 x 24 + $18 = $90. Or $7.50 a collet. We won’t discuss the number of or cost of the broken end mills … great video.. wish I had seen it before I busted a bunch of … we’ll never mind .. thank for the great videos
At my former place of work, we used a five thou diameter end mill on one of our processes in stainless. Five thou! .005! You could break the thing by looking at it funny. Sometimes I'd spend upwards of 20 minutes just dialing in the runout to a tenth or less. During that, I'd swap out collects, knock the collet around with a mallet, swap, measure, swap, measure. You learn pretty quickly that some collets are just wildly better than others. And some tools holders are just not up to the task. Cheers, thanks for the video.
this entire video has been a learning experience to me i knew literally nothing about milling, collets, or even run outs. your videos are really well done and easy to follow along with, one of the best 19 minutes of youtube i've watched keep up the stellar work my friend
Wow. Well then, you're in for a treat. He slices, he dices, and his one-inch punch cuts steel like butter. Just avoid the control panel labeled "Time Machine".
Another rock solid video TOT! As a non-machinist who aspires to do more with this hobby I totally understand the conflict. The "how much of this hobby am I doing to justify the higher price tool" dilemma is real. Lots to think about and thanks a ton for sharing. BTW @14:03 I was sure you where going to cut to kids hands for the "kid in me" part like the old Frosted Mini-Wheats commercials.
Your progress through the hobby dictates it. As you get better, you need better tools. And with better tools, you can move on to bigger and better builds... I'm a scale modeller for example. You start with cheap paints and brushes, get to the point where you can't improve your models because your brushes and paints are now the limiting factor - so you upgrade...
@@richbuilds_com That's also been my approach with learning to play the bass. At my level I can't tell the difference between a $200 and $2000 guitar while fumbling through major scales and Seven Nation Army
You and Abom are held in a really high place to me as far as machining goes, with that being said I really would've love to see you boar those collet into true center on the lath just as much as I wanted to see abom split those breaks calipers without using that funky vise
Thank you. I discovered your channel back when I had just started school for machining. I owe a lot of my grades and successes in school and since to learning the basics on your channel. I am now a machinist cutting graphite electrodes holding 0.0002 tolerance and would not have made it here as quickly without your channel
"Since when did it become OK to sell junk?" I've forgotten how many times ive asked myself the same question. I'm not a machinist. I'm a PC guy. But the question still stands. Thanks for another great Vid TOT!!!!!
Coming from woodworking as a hobby I now know how I can even spend more on tools: do metalworking instead. So maybe I stick with the thing I can barely afford a little bit longer. But your videos are a joy to watch and I can learn something about I may never use, but the heck, they are funny and so well made! Would even watch you unboxing and using cheap tools with death runout of doom, as long as you wear the heavy duty security flip flops. Please don´t stop making videos.
Holy shit, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a RUclipsr with a better sense of humor than this man. Never did I think I’d find THE internet funny man in a machining video of all places
This Old Tony is BACK! This was one of the most entertaining videos I've seen in a long time. Boy, finding out the solution AFTER breaking good tooling is cathartic and mind-numbing - at the same time! I think we've all been there. And THAT'S how the high end stuff gets us: the cheap stuff drives us SCREAMING to them. I have a lawnmower that does that... 🙄
The moment you mentioned broken tools I knew exactly what the problem was... somehow I'm pretty sure I've learned it from watching your videos, when ever you throw something in the chuck that is already machined you always center it correctly to avoid errors and or broken tools. Some how I though you've already made a video on this issue, but I'm glad I actually learned something from your, and you should be proud to know that your videos are teaching people about machining... because I'm not even a machinist, don't own a shop, don't have a single power tool bigger then a 18v drill, yet somehow I've learned enough from your videos to diagnose the issue like a backseat machinist :D
Trying to fix the runout of a cheap er collet and holder might make for a really interesting video, if it's feasible. Seeing you go for super precise stuff like scraping in ways or measuring vices is always cool
@@jodygarcia9892 You aren't kidding. Raw stock is freaking expensive now where I live in Canuckistan. Doesn't matter if it's wood or metal. Where I live MDF is the same price as clear select or better pine. Don't even get me started on baltic birch plywood. 2 years ago I was paying $62 a sheet. Now? $149.00. Trying making a living with your costs increasing by 2.5x.
Every point of contact is potential point of failrue. From spindle runout, spindle taper to holder contact, holder itself, collet in holder and tool itself. All those things stack up and get way bigger when tools and holders get longer.
I learned about RO when I built my CNC router and was looking for actual smaller chucks for my Porter Cable router instead of the cheap insert. Sure the 1/4" to 1/8" holds the bit but how WELL does it hold the bit? I was pleased when I made my cnc so it was repeatable .0001". Little did I know that could be thrown out by a cheap adapter.
I don't need to know about Collets but hey, you made a really fun video and that "when did it become okay to sell trash" really resonates across many consumer markets.
Tony, I've been a Machinist for over 40 years, love the trade. Most of that time was spent in the USAF working on aircraft. There were many times during the lean budget times when getting replacement tooling could become about impossible. So we were forced to think outside of the box a lot. One thing I found that worked for me was to make an adapter for end mills and other cutters that would work in a set of collets. Basically, it was a piece of round stock that I turned on a lathe to make sure it was straight and sized for the collet. Drilled and reamed a hole for the shank size of the end mill, tapered the end and then drilled and tapped a hole for a set screw to lock the end-mill in the holder. I always used a set screw that would fit flush or had minimal amount sticking out. Grinding a small flat like a Weldon shank works if the end mill slips if you are taking heavy cuts with larger cutters. For the smaller end-mills, you can do that to both ends of the rod for two size end mills, like 1/4 on one side and 5/16 or 3/8 on the other end. I made up a set like that for 1/2, 3/4 and 1" collets for practically every size end mill we had. If you have some nice stainless steel round stock that works best and you don't have to worry about corrosion. If you only have a few good running collets this works and you don't have to have to buy one size collet of all your different size end mills. An additional benefit is that you can extend the cutter down from the spindle. Over the years I've made dozens of these holders and they always worked great. But this is just a suggestion from things that worked for me.
I haven't touched a mill or lathe in over 10 years, as I'm now in the polygon and pixel-pushing business, but it's amazing to see how a crappy tool can ruin your day regardless of the field. Thanks Tony!
I’ve explained my work as a machinist as a long and expensive journey to disappointment. The stuff I make is so complicated on such tight turn around times there is almost always some aspect I wish turned out better. One day I broke 7 $125 drills and got zero useable holes. 2 I broke just getting them out of the packaging. They were 0.001" diameter. When I got them to work, I drilled 460 holes with one then 20 more holes with 3 drills. It kept me up at night.
@@BasementEngineer I was using a Haas DM-2 with a 80,000 rpm auxiliary air spindle that I set the run out on with an optical comparator. There are special laser systems to dial in drills that small, but I don’t have one. It was a big learning experience. The goal was to filter liquid medium for cell cultures but we ended up making a filter cartridge using PEEK mesh instead.
That reminds me of something I discovered a couple of years ago. I knew someone who was new to drag racing & he was venting to me about problems w/ what he said was 'Loctite failure' on critical fasteners. I suggested he may need to safety wire them, then went on to explain the theory & application of safety wiring. (I have some aviation background & plenty of pre-Loctite era racing experience.) I offered to buy him some cross drilled replacement bolts, plus a safety wire kit & show him how it's done, to help him out. Then I priced the bolts & crapped my knickers! Hell, I could buy 1,000 non-cross drilled gr 8 SHCS, (socket head cap screws), for the price of 24 pre-drilled bolts. I've used my fair share of safety wire & have the puncture scars to remind me, but I've never cross drilled a bolt head in 50+ years of building hot rods, race cars, & such, so I went to the Internet to see how/what there as to the process. All I heard or read was 'buy lots of drill bits cause you'll break them by the dozens.' I pondered the problem for a bit, then ordered drill bits, 0.035", if memory serves, (not 0.001", but still small.), some hardened drill guides & reamers to match. I put a scrap of 6061 T6 in my mill & seat of the pants designed a drill jig for cross drilling SHCS. I made sure to anchor the SHCS in the jig w/ cross bolts & press fit the drill guides. With my scrap metal jig, I embarked on my 1st every journey of cross drilling bolt heads. I played with drill RPM & feed rate & found how easy it was to wear bits if you get too aggressive, but I didn't break any. I wore 3-4 bits searching for optimal RPM & rate, then drilled 47 bolts w/ the 4th bit, & 25 more w/ the 5th. I boxed up the 5th bit w/ the jig, the rest of a 100 box of SHCS, the drilled fasteners, along w/ a safety wire kit & took them to the kid, (he's 34, but to an ancient fart like me, he's a kid.) He no longer has 'Loctite failure' problems & I have a bunch of extra 0.35" drill bits! (Need any, I bought lots! LOL) I also have some newly acquired knowledge & experience about drill guides & drilling jigs. Hopefully I'll live long enough to put it to use & pay for my gift to the kid, at the very least. LOL Hope you enjoyed my tale as much as the kid enjoys not having Loctite failure. GeoD PS I'm surprised EDM is not being used for 0.001" holes. Isn't that right in EDM's application wheelhouse? (That statement exhausts the extent of my EDM knowledge/experience...)
I love how the confirmation bias-enforcing argument of "buy once, cry once" (I can attest to my bias for buying nice tools, and the many forms that argument can take while convincing a significant other that, yes, I do *need* that $600 ), faded into the "If you give a mouse a cookie" argument. Because I can also attest to my love of cookies--gotta get the good saw blades to go with that new cordless skill saw, and probably a bigger battery than what comes with the stock kit while we're at it!
A recommendation I heard is buy it once for really cheap and by the point it wears out (if it does at all) you'll know what exactly you need. Doesn't really work on the example of collets though.
It really does become a slippery slope when you're trying to hit dead on accuracy. If any tool in the chain is faulty, it invalidates all of the money spent on the others. But at the same time, you'll go broke halfway to a great setup if you're only buying the best. So I think the real lesson is to empty your pockets on testing equipment like gauges and then try your luck with the remainder, testing it all along the way to see if you got a crapper.
@@Beakerbite on endmills that have a hair of runout, it's possible to hit fairly accurate cuts if you mill a slot and then measure it and use that for your diameter offset. Then make sure you cut near the bottom of the tool so that it's always cutting with the widest point of runout to get the most square cut possible. Or just buy quality tools and don't bother with that
This is the video I needed, but not the video I deserve. I bought Chinesium collets knowing they were crap, and that better ones existed. I was oblivious to the issue (by choice/laziness), but you've convinced me. I also learned that it's much easier to just buy the clock measure as opposed to actually using it and dealing with reality 🙈
Was really hoping that you were gonna show a super-slick way of fixing substandard collets....😆 My issues weren't recycled garbage from China; but more dents/dings/galling from previous use. A new "quality" (=$$) set and a complicated setup (for me) spindle regrind corrected the issues- Thanks for the video!
You could likely slip an expanding arbor into them and set up between centers and use a tool post grinder to true them. Or if the issue was internal and you have a known true collet chuck you could set that up and use a ream to take them up to the next size.
Hey tony! Thanks as always for the entertainment! I don’t work as a machinist or welder, nor do I own any metal working tools, except maybe for a handheld grinder. But I always look forward to watching your videos. They are very entertaining as well as educational, and if I had a larger working space, your videos would make me want to get more into the world of metal. 😁
Hey Tony, I want to thank you for putting me down this hobby path to help with my hobby racecar. Between the cost of the mill and lathe, tooling, time, learning, wasted stock and frustration…ahhhh it really is fun and rewarding. Thanks!
Your grasp of comedy is epic… You had me staring at the R8 and 5C until the exact moment I burst out awkwardly laughing - and I probably didn’t even get the joke if ther was one beyond “mkay, good to know…”, I ain’t a machinist.
My nan had a saying about buying cheap & inevitably buying twice, which i forget, but i think she was making a similar point to yours. Always a joy watching your videos, Old Tony.
I love your videos. Your humor makes learning about the most mundane thing machine related is much appreciated. I don’t even machine, I find your channel quite educational. Great content! I’m a fan! 🤟🏼
Hi Tony, thanks for throwing some light on this murky subject. We foolish hobby machinists are always looking for a "good" deal, but there are some areas where it is too deadly to compromise. Can't tell you what a revelation I had when I finally got a decent milling vise and suitable parallels - things actually turn out square and true!
Hi Tony - I have no intention of ever buying so much as a piece of machinist equipment. But I still love your videos been watching for years. Can't put my finger on it but for some reason you are my favourite youtuber.
Man one of the best "mistakes" I ever made was buying used toolholders early on. After purchasing my older style cnc mill and trying to tool it up on the little bit of leftover cash I still had, I initially bought a couple of nmtb40 er32 toolholders from Glacern (which I've been very pleased with... not to mention their awesome customer service), but like you said they were like a 150 each. Found a guy on ebay trying to sell 5 packs of older used Universal/Devlieg nmtb40 toolholders for something like 100 bucks for 5 (with the collet nuts). Like I said this was super early on in me trying to figure out the never ending world of machine tools, but the guy straight up lied to me when I asked if they were for er32 collets (either that or he was even more ignorant than I was back then) so I wound up getting 5 toolholders designed for Acura-Flex collets. Only 1 out of the 5 was so abused that I wouldn't use it, the rest just needed some cleaning up, but then I had to go and travel down the rabbit hole of "non-er" collet systems (despite the fact I'd just bought a decent set of er collets. Wound up finding out that not only were the acura-flex collets more expensive but so were the toolholders and collet nuts (So I really made off like a bandit for how cheap I got those 4 good holders & 5 good nuts for). Even better tho, was that while it seems to be a collet system that isn't super prominent anymore, they actually hold tighter tolerances than the standard for er collets, and the collets were available in practically every odd one-off size you dont always see. Obviously I use both systems now, but I'd have never even known to look for other styles of collets had that dude not tried to screw me out of a hundred bucks, so hats off to him! lol
@@rufusconnolly8489 No problem dude! I was actually planning on doing a quick video on my little channel (and I mean little lol) showing the difference between these 2 collet systems within the next week. Probably wont be anything special, but should check it out for some visual comparisons/references & each in use if you're looking into buying something similar. Also, even though Universal/Devlieg's website looks kinda outdated, they are very much still in business (thats where I've been buying my acura-flex collets from. You can find em used on ebay but Ive had less luck with the condition of dirt cheap collets than I have toolholders.) Not to mention, they've also got a few more styles of lesser known collets systems on their website that may be worth looking into.
Good info there. Another point is keeping the collets and chucks spotlessly clean. If you have one, try using an ultrasonic cleaning bath from time to time. This is a trick that Stefan Gotteswinter advocates and has covered it in one of his superb videos. I never came across the burring problem but now aware of it will check my stock of "budget" ER collets. Cheers Tony 👍.
ToT made it a bit simpler than the actual situation by assuming the collet's work holding (eccentric) axis was nevertheless parallel to the machine spindle's axis of rotation. In real life that's unlikely, in which case the tip of the tool may be orbiting three or four times as much as the shank was where he measured it. It's a little more difficult to measure runout accurately once you get to the cutting part of an end milling cutter, but it's important to clock the runout close to the business end.
Well you did it again. I read the title and thought I don’t care anything about collets and then watched every second of the vid enthralled. You are the Master Sorcerer of Yt
I'm not a machinist and I'll never be buying collets but you've just described why buying a good quality tool actually saves you in the long run. Longevity for one. I have some tools my dad got 60+ years ago that are still better than some you can get today (wrenches and sockets) Blackhawk (well before it was bought by Proto in the 80s) for instance. Anyhow. Very interesting and amazing that what you buy isn't always what you get as far as tolerances etc. and how it can lead to very expensive frustration. You are an excellent and amazing teacher. Thank you.
every one of your vids is an instant like! for two years i worked in my college's metal workshop as student monitor, and i watched and rewatched everyone of your videos, and you gave me so much inspiration, knowledge and good laughs for what i was doing! thank you so very much!
Your college has a metal shop? Where I live they deleted all the trades out of highschools and now the government wonders why we're short 450,000 skilled tradesmen.
@@muskokamike127 in Portugal, depending on the areas, it is quite normal to have either full dedicated schools to trades (such as welding, drafting and/or machining). In my case, I studied (still study) Product Design in college, but mine is specially known for having great shops, for wood, metal and all that jazz! Even ceramics!
Thanks for busting out the "good book" and showing how its used. A friend lent me his when I got my mini-lathe, but I didn't know what to do with it so I gave it back. Showing what information can be found in the Machinery's Handbook (or any tech manual), and how it is used, is valuable to any greenhorn in a technical profession.
I've unfortunately been involved in many different industries and the thing I hate, in all of them, they all have their own acronyms and language. When I got involved with cnc and built my own router table. I raged against 'backlash" Sorry, just no. I got into it with many a machinist over that term. "it's always been called backlash"!!! they railed. Sorry no, just because you've been calling it the wrong term for 1000 years doesn't make it right. It isn't backlash, it's slack. If you don't know, backlash is used to describe the "pause" in a ball screw or ? when you turn it, and the driven nut doesn't react right away. Then you get into SRO PPO DRO FFO TIR TAC and that's when I chime in with GFY..."what's gfy"? Google it!!!
@@Iceberg86300 the literal definition of "backlash" is something that occurs after something else happens. In machining, it is used to describe what ISN'T happening aka the ball nut isn't moving immediately when the ball screw turns. That is SLOP or SLACK. Backlash is what happens when you say something outrageous in public and people react to it. In machining, when your ball nut doesn't move immediately, that is a DELAYED reaction.
@@muskokamike127 I'm 100% with you on the acronyms, but the definition of backlash seems like a very odd hill to choose to die on. B/c you do realize that words *_can_* have multiple meanings, correct? (See the bottom of this comment) I'd also put a lot of money on the definition of "backlash," that you so vehemently disapprove of, being widely accepted in the engineering/technical community for far longer than you or I have been alive. Probably entered use around the same time that "lash" began to be used to describe the clearance between parts of a mechanical actuator. Which is much more difficult to find in a dictionary. You're obviously free to call it "SLOP" or "SLACK" if you wish, and I know nothing I say will be able to sway you, but backlash is a far better term b/c of it's specificity & widely accepted meaning in the engineering/technical/industrial realms. Which is "lost motion." "Slop" & "slack" tend to be reserved for excessive clearance & describing cable/chain/belting/etc, respectively. Dictionary References: Dictionary dot com: "3 Machinery. a) the space between the thickness of a gear tooth and the width of the space between teeth in the mating gear, designed to allow for a film of lubricant, binding from heat expansion and eccentricity, or manufacturing inaccuracies. b) play or lost motion between loosely fitting machine parts." OED via Google: "2. recoil arising between parts of a mechanism. -degree of play between parts of a mechanism. "typical gearbox backlash in these systems is 2°"" Merriam Webster: "1 a: a sudden violent backward movement or reaction b: the play between adjacent movable parts (as in a series of gears)"
@@Iceberg86300 Yes I realize words can have multiple meanings and usually they are not the opposite of each other. Yes I realize merriam webster uses the machinist's definition as well. To put it another way: would you accept the definition of "tall" as: a person or object that is higher in stature and a person or object that is smaller in stature? As for "a hill to die on" nope, it's just an example of how many trades, vocations etc have their own nomenclature some of them not very accurate. Tell me you haven't opened up assembly instructions and upon reading you haven't a clue wtf they are asking you to do? I used to do just that, write instruction manuals and I was praised for the simplicity and ease people could follow them. See, I've worked in many different fields and learned the KISS method of operating.
Hi Tony, thanks for the videos. I bought a set of ER 25 collets based on the largest diameter material I could pass through the spindle of my Myford lathe. I also purchased a Morse taper #2 collet chuck and a few extra collet nuts all in ER 25. The Morse chuck had no observable runout but the 3/8" endmill in the appropriate ER collet was terrible at about 5 thou straight out of it's pretty little yellow box. A 1/4" wasn't much better. I decided to clean them all in engine cleaner with a stiff bristle, industrial style, "tooth brush". The crap that came out was unbelievable. Then I looked at the slots carefully. Almost every one had a "tail" of swarf from the slitting device, some short some as long as the slit. I ran a small box cutter down each slit removing any swarf and then a small triangular file down the inside and outside edges of the slits followed by another washing and blow dry with compressed air. Subsequent tests with the same end mills reduced runout to less than 0.001". So, in the sizes I tested, the thorough cleaning worked. Since my lathe has a screw on spindle I decided to make my own screw on ER 25 collet chuck using one of the extra purchased nuts. The chuck is only machined and not ground but runout is still less than 0.001" with the same collets. While I agree with you that buying chineseum items might be questionable, paying attention to cleaning before use pays off. Sure buying starstruck or mightytoyo products will, in all likelihood give instant gratification, that's a fat load of use while you're still recovering from paying their price for one collet that would covered a whole set of the chineseum brand. Regards from Canada's banana belt. ❄️🇨🇦🍌🥋🇺🇦🕊️🇺🇲💩🇨🇳👍
My wife went to work for one of the major US metal working suppliers, (McMaster-Carr, Fastenal, Grainger league), & because of an incredibly generous employee purchasing program, I've been able to buy toys for my non-business shop, (I'm disabled/retirement age & make/fix all our stuff to stay busy & sane.) I've been able to afford big name stuff to replace or supplement the cheap stuff I bought before she got this job. What I discovered is there are several factors that impact the final quality of cheap tools & tooling: A. The emphasis of QC by the company having the product manufactured. If the company that puts their name on something stresses QC, then items made in China, India or Eastern Europe can be cheap & still be high quality. Because the purchasing program is the employer's cost + 10%, I've seen just what they pay for their products, & it's been eye opening. Also, the company has a wide range of house brands either bought directly from the countries/regions mentioned, or from big name US/European manufacturers, (being the inquisitive/observant type, I've found numerous items identical to big namers, but at 30-40 of the cost, (supplier's cost, not retail cost). I have a LOT of house brand stuff in my shop, (hint, hint). B. When manufacturer's sell direct on eBay, (I have a theory I'll share further down.), they are selling at rock bottom prices because they feel that's what they have to do, due to a lack of brand recognition. To sell at those prices, they cut corners everywhere: cleaning, lubrication, packaging whereever they can. Before my wife got her job, (my dream job for her! LOL), I discovered I could greatly extend the life of many Harbor Freight power tools simply by taking them apart & adequately lubing &/or replacing bushings w/ bearings or bronze gears w/ steel gears. They used to sell a corded 4" side grinder w/ a major drive bushing made oversized & out of bronze. The over-sized bushing was the exact size of a replacement roller bearing. Once I discovered this, I quit killing grinders in 2-3 days; they'd last 2-3 years w/ a bearing. My theory about direct eBay sales. I used to buy 90% of my materials & tools from China via eBay. I found the Chinese vendors great to deal w/ & open once you communicated w/ them in Chinese, (Google translate). Problems w/ returns ended, lack of specs & product info ended & relationships developed; generally, they are eager to please their customers. I discovered many of the sellers were either principals in the manufacturing company, or employees of the company, w/ the job of managing eBay sales. My theory is many companies use eBay as a substitute for a samples program. If you venture onto US big name website, they all have a samples program for potential large quantity customers, (just try to get samples w/o a big company name-ain't gonna happen very often). Using eBay makes it simple for China manufacturers to have a sample program at low cost. They just tell potential large volume customers to go to eBay & buy a sample for less than the cost of shipping. Notice most all Chinese eBay vendors have limited quantities available. I never got a direct yes or no from the connections I made or the conversations I had, but NONE of them laughed at me, or told me I was off base w/ my theory. And I got lots of direct answers about different topics/areas. It does take a while to gain their trust. What triggered this theory was a high volt/amp electronic relay I bought for ~$4.00, just to have some around & they were so inexpensive. My 3hp 80 gal Ingersol Rand uses a relay w/ the same specs & a repacement is several hundred dollars. A replacement primary coil cost me $80 fifteen years ago. Six months after I bought several relays, I ran across them on the shelf, decided to get a spec sheet based on the brand & model. I traced them back to a Chinese company who specialized in electronic safety curtain barriers for the manufacturing industry. In the old days, a canvas curtain was hung between walk ways & machines which would maim or kill. They became known as safety curtains. The modern version uses light emitting & light conducting diodes housed in what looks like an old single bulb 8' flourescent light fixture. When the beam is interrupted, the low voltage diode circuit triggers a relay which shuts down the high voltage/amperage machinery & turns on flashing lights & warning sirens. I found the spec sheets for their in-house branded relays on their site along w/ a nearly $60 price tag for the relay. Now, why would this company sell the same item on eBay for ~$4.00 & free shipping. I ordered two more to check the mailing address, it was the factory's address. I never made a good contact w/ them, or got an answer as to why, but they verified the items I bought on eBay would be covered by them, for the 3 yr warranty. There is a lot more going on in the industrial manufacturing world than most people are privy to, try to find out. I've got even more info from my curiosity about tools & equipment and from decades prior, when I was a principle owner/investor in a computer manufacturer business. We imported components, directly, & that was a very wild west world. GeoD
First thankyou for everything that you throw our way, makes scraping parts and tools more fun .Second , Sir ToT ,thankyou ,you ghave me the confidence to buy a used mill and that was a game change for my projects . On topic ,and related to your head space problem on the Shaublin , i use the ISO 30 direct colets , got them from Stefan's country at Paulimot .about 100 eur +shipping . only a metric set .They work for me fantastic . Did see some used ISO 40 sets in our local markets (Romania) so i guess those are an option to. Keep having fun Sir .
I don't machine, but I love watching machining videos, which is how I stumbled upon your channel. I do however have a cnc router for wood and soft metals, and have struggled at times with breaking smaller bits with no explanation. I too bought the el-cheapo ER20 collets because I didn't think it mattered, but now thanks to this video I can't wait to get home and check the run out on them. If I find that the run out is minimal and couldn't be the problem, then I guess I have to accept the fact that the reason for the failures could only mean that I am idiot. Either way, you have shown me the light. Awesome content, good sir. I am subscribed.
Man I needed this video! Thanks Tony! I got into your videos ~5 years ago, and am not the "mechanically inclined" guy in our research group, and your vids are the reason. Thanks!
My mom used to say, "I'm too poor to buy cheap" all the time. I didn't fully grasp that concept until I grew up and started buying stuff as well as assortments of accessories for said stuff. I generally still can't justify top of the line, but a step or two below that is okay with me.
it's got to be 45 years since I used a milling machine, but this was strangely need to know. At least you mentioned a Dremel collet ;) Enjoyable content.
This should be shown in machinist classes. Here's a pro tip: check the runout at the end of the tool on the flutes. Turning the tool in reverse, check if the high points are the same reading.
Got to do that with a 3/4" reamer that's about a foot long. Cutting aluminum, so I can't trust it to follow the hole and not cut over. Spend fifteen minutes tapping back and forth to get the last quarter thou of runout at the tip gone so I can hit tolerance on the hole, and then I leave it in the holder afterwards. Inevitably I run out of 5/8" collets and need to take it out, and that's when the same job rolls around again and I need to start over.
10min since posting, already 563 (including mine) thumbs up. Vid is 18:29 long. This is how you know you make good content. Don't even have to watch before liking it. Keep it up!
I feel like I've learned a valuable lesson about how much time machinists think about sphincters. Really funny video, and even though I've never touched a mill in my life I feel like I've learned something fundamental about the trade. Thanks!
Absolutely… as James Earl Jones once said in that movie where some dude built a hockey rink in a beanfield or something, “If you post it, they will watch.”
My general tool purchasing philosophy has long been: When I buy a new tool for the first time I buy the cheap tool, then use it till that one breaks or fails (ostensibly because it either turned out to be too crude for my needs or I’ve used it enough for it to wear out and break.) But then when I replace the broken tool; I cough up the money and try to buy something I hope will last a lifetime.
While I might dream of genuine Rego collets, the sad fact is if I bought the originals, I would have spent so much that I could not afford much else. Caveat emptor. Maybe I can’t afford the dog.
It's always a good day when a ToT video drops.. 😁 Love your dry humour and production style as well as the invaluable information you include in you videos Tony 👍 Cheers from Australia
Found an ole Atlas/Craftsman 12x54 lathe on CL needing some repair & parts to get it going. Maybe have $1000 in it now not including one single tool or holder for it. It'll be fun hunting tools for it this winter. Learning everything you can before wasting a big bunch of money really helps. THANKS Mr Tony
Cleaning the burs from my set indeed did wonders to it, don't forget to check the inside too. That had the worst of them. It's always good to remember that these cheap things aren't a product but more of a kit of parts thing. Assume that you'll need to put in quite some effort in finishing them in order to get decent performance out of whatever you bought cheaply
I’m glad you made this video Tony. Like many others I took an interest in machining from watching you and folks like Clickspring and Blondiehacks. After slowing building up tools and such from scrimping and saving I have a machine shop in my shed. Don’t get me wrong, I love my shop and the content you guys on the Tube of You create. But so many RUclipsrs use ER collets. Clikspring is kinda like a magician with his set… After a few years of putzing about in the shop I can safely say that my ER 40 collets have the least reliable hold on my cutters and parts. I hate them. I have made it a point of useing 5Cs and R8s when ever I can just because they have never let a part or cutter get pulled of of them. Are they cheap collets? I guess. Sure didn’t feel like it at the time. But a cheap 5C or R8 is a lot easier to deburr and true up.
JH: ER collets are MUCH better at work and tool holding than any C5 or R8 collet or similar. For cutter holding the latter two are absolutely terrible. It's because of this failure, the set-screw type of endmill holders were invented. I was forced to use R8's early in my career and detested them thoroughly. To use C5 and R8 collets for endmills, an insane amount of torque needs to be applied to their draw bar to prevent the cutter from slipping in that collet. I suggest that you verify the tightening torque specified by the manufacturer for your collets, and comply with that. Methinks that torque is quite high for an ER 40 collet, and two long wrenches will be needed to accomplish this. Also check for burrs on the collet and the holder. I use Morse taper #2 collets in my small mill in my home shop. These hold really tightly and and are a bear to release. Fortunately the spindle on the Bridgeport M head is equipped with a self-releasing draw bar, which makes using my collets a pleasure.
I am a welder (usually tig) and you have the old style of tig collets. I’ve switched to what’s called wedge collets. I’ve used one for about a year as opposed to wearing out the old style and having to replace them semi regularly. They don’t use the same mechanism to hold the tungsten as the other collets but they do the same thing, if that makes sense. Thanks for the vid, I liked it
So glad it made it to youtube! I absolutely hate small endmills too at work, they always seem to break on me. But looking back at it, our ERs are not treated so nicely, maybe its time to check runout next time that happens. Also so glad to have gotten a video from you again, hope everythings a little better for you :)
The problem too is the endmill itself. I had a 2 flute with bottom cutting (for wood) and it chattered like an angry squirrel. Come to find out the flute length was different for each one. Into the FI bucket they all went.
@@D3nn1s If you have an issue, you have to look at all the possibilities. Could be the end mill, could be the collett, could be user error (feed rate DOC or spindle speed).
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Your videos are really a gem in the internet. Teaching and fun to watch at the same time. Greetings from a, now a little less frustrated, hobbyist in germany
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
hey tony, just wanted to thank you for getting me involved in a field where i am now working in machining! nothing better than turning raw stock into scrap metal
Very cool! I'm still at the talent level of turning bigger pieces of metal in to smaller metal pieces. Hopefully by the end of the year, I'll be able to produce some fine scrap metal myself. 😉😂
Yeah, electrical stuff is fun too: Keep cutting the wire, but yanno, it is STILL too short. What gives?
Me too. Honestly 3 er 4 years ago I got interested in making things found TOT and Stephen, nyccnc etc. Didn't have any way to even touch machine tools, but had aspirations. Then covid happened, lost my salaried chef job, then got lucky and got a cnc operators certificate on the very last round of tech grants. Got a job at an established shop specializing in repair jobs for steel and paper mills amongst anything else here in Portland. I'm an assembler, but I have been taught manual Blanchard, od, I'd grinding, gear hobbing. It wasn't what I was hired for...... but I'm grateful.
All thanks to fun content that gave myself a better understanding and interest to concepts I was only acutely aware of due to growing up in the ex automotive heart of America.
Thanks Tony!
@@richardboulanger3393 You need to use the wire stretcher Laddy, not the cutter...lol
I really enjoy working on something for a week and scrapping it out on the last step!
What about a WhatchamaCollet?
Don't forget the uckumpucky.
My current job is as an accountant for a manufacturer. I don't step anywhere near a metal fabrication shop. You just explained to me why the collets my machinists are purchasing are so expensive. Thank you Tony!
Now that's a PSA!
glad to see an accountant actually learning instead of just making expense decisions on a whim without having any awareness of what kind of equipment is required. Good on you, fr.
i wish i had office people like you ... our guys don't even think about speeds and feeds and end up in shock when we tell them we almost caught the machine on fire (cnc routing wood)
@@Laurelinad lmfao at the bean counters thinking wood is fireproof.
I’m devastated you’re not actually a gaming scientist.
Oh my goodness what a timely video!! I've been cutting some parts recently and am repeatedly breaking the small endmills. Nothing I tried was making it work. Came across this video and decided it was worth a try. Replaced my 1/8" collet today and the machine has been running flawlessly for a couple hours now. THANK YOU!
Thank you for these really wonderful videos. I'm not a machinist, I am a retired software developer who has 30 hobbies in his garage, house and yard. I'm allergic to nonsense and junk -- so I do appreciate your periodic antidote videos.
I stopped buying Starrett hair gel when I lost my hair a couple of decades ago. I was suddenly flush with cash and able to purchase quality collets.
Thanks for this video Tony. The level of quality(price) is always part of the equation and sometimes regrettable sacrifices are made.
Hair or Quality collets? 🙆♂
👱♂ Well that's an easy choice.🗜
Lost your hair? I suspect it is because you were buying the cheap, chinese knock-off hair gel in the counterfeit Starrett box.
@@BrilliantDesignOnline or he was pulling it all out due to runnout from the cheep collets :p
Starrett also makes shaving gel and aftershave. Nothing turns on women like a man smelling of sulfated cutting oil!
I've been a machinist for 3 years now. Seeing that correlation between chip load and run out explains so much when it comes to some of our smaller endmills snapping seemingly at random. I might have to make it a point to do away with some of our old worn out collets. I am in charge of our tooling.
even if you're using good quality tools, being able to validate their spec somehow seems really useful. It's not uncommon for people seasoned in their job to become complacent to errors / issues.
I highly recommend going through every tool and throwing it in the trash, until you can achieve .00001" on the Mitutoyo dial indicator (don't use that cheap Chinese crap). Until then, you're just pretending to be a machinist.
Send the bad ones to me okay?
Dont just buy new ones. Retrieve the old ones and toss them.
@@PabloEdvardo ToT made it a bit simpler than the actual situation by assuming the collet's work holding (eccentric) axis was nevertheless parallel to the machine spindle's axis of rotation. In real life that's unlikely, in which case the tip of the tool may be orbiting three or four times as much as the shank where he measured it.
It's a little more difficult to measure runout accurately once you get to the cutting part of an end milling cutter, but it's important to clock the runout close to the business end.
I've said it before and I'll say it again - I have no affiliation with metalworking or any actual interest in doing it myself, but every time you post a video I smile and put the kettle on. Always a great watch, and I'm sure this one will be too.
You'd be surprised how addicting it can be. I highly recommend getting some time on a machine someday if you can.
I’ve always had just some hand tools but I’m hopelessly addicted to machining. Maybe breaking my own endmills could cure me?
I've tried wearing kettles, now I just stick with T-shirts.
Me too. I just stumbled on this channel maybe a couple months ago and I find myself daily watching 6 year old videos. I heard Adam Savage mention TOT a few days ago. Makers enjoy makers I guess. Doesn't matter the discipline.
@@brahtrumpwonbigly7309 ong i never even knew what machining was but once i got like 30 minutes on a lathe it was over for me
Haha i would double upvote if i could. Its another instant classic.
You are like this cool, weird uncle i never had that knows all about his profession. Thanks for teaching stuff in a funny, easy understandable way. You are an idol and i admire you.
Keep up the work, you are fantastic!
Hi Tony, I am a retired fitter and turner and worked for Seco Tools for 28 years here in New Zealand and we made a range of different collets and chucks etc. Tool run out is so important as you have explained and it really doesn't matter what size cutter you are using, unbalanced tool wear will show up. Its the same old question/answer, when you buy cheap you get cheap, no matter what it is. Side lock holders are the cheaper way to go where the tool run out is minimal and good for most applications. Many older machinist who have been around for a while will remember when Clarkson released their range of FC3 cutters. FC3 cutters were small HSS cutters up to 1/4 inch or 6 mm and were held in a side lock holder. They worked well. Hope this helps. Cheers Ian
Your sense of humour never fails 🤣 I'm not a machinist myself, but I work in engineering research and I must say, being a regular viewer of your videos taught me a lot and has made me look much more experienced at work than I really am 🤣I'll owe some of my next raise to you !
tell your supervisor This Old Tony said you deserve a raise.
May I also say
Find And view
CEE " Cutting Edge Engineering "
Australian Engineering
You Tube Channel
Australian Young Guy , His Wife , Their Dog ....
Milling , making , Fabrication , Fixing , Welding ..... Big machinery , Parts , .... etc
Worth the Viewing
Thanks for reading
" What man makes ,
He Destorys , then Refabricates "
Thank you ToT
Hey Tony, there are 2 parts to your videos, the content which is always amazing. Then there is all the post video graphics, modelling and general make the video ‘super interesting to watch’, ‘stuff’. For all that sir, we truly thank you. PS Your tee sharts (as you know who would say😉) are washing and wearing very well. Kindest regards from Bonnie Scotland. Joe.
As a retired electrical design engineer, a trip to the techs and some of the other disciplines that apply, early in design phases, can make you look a bit smarter, too. For me it was packaging guys, dynamicists, thermal, etc. as an electrical design engineer. Frequently I got asked where I was in the process from them, and I said 'not far', and they just looked at me funny. They were used to getting contacted when the shit had already hit the fan, in test and integration, where changes, at least in the military aerospace world, were far more expensive.
I worked with some scientific/engineering researcher types a few times, and was usually in awe. One guy was designing materials from a molecular level, pretty much before that was a thing, and he could predict properties with fairly amazing accuracy, most of the time. The problem was he was BRILLIANT at that, and CLUELESS about how to make any of it producible. He was making materials that could be used in soft contact lenses that would sit out on a table for days without drying out. It's been a long time, but IIRC that was both a materials problem, and some surface geometry for further improvement. This was several decades ago. Now I'm sure it's SOP, at a much higher level.
Did you see the moldable transparent plastic that was developed recently, with something like 12X the strength to weight of steel, INCREDIBLY impact resistant, very low porosity (small molecule, high pressure distribution systems), etc? Supposedly easily scalable to large production, with relatively minor process changes, and they predict uses all the way from STRUCTURAL building components (can you imagine looking into some skyscraper support structure and being able to see through it?), to space station windows (now VERY expensive and easily scratched sapphire, I think), to cars, to a LOT of things. If you saw the Star Trek movie, with Scotty giving out the transparent aluminum formula, they just demolished every aspect of that material. As often happens, Star Trek got it VERY close. :-) I am really hoping this tech is not another 'eternal technology of the future', like practical fusion power generation (so far, and for the immediate future, almost certainly). Oh yeah, the plastic gets those properties from a process developed for 3D lattice connections between layers, which apparently was doable before, but only for very short distances, until the process collapsed. Now they can just make sheets of it, apparently, or soon anyway, I can't keep up with anything, anymore, makes my eyes cross and my hair hurt, what's left of it, at my age. Truly amazing, and in every field you can think of, and more.
Sometimes I am thankful for the back door of death coming in probably 20 years or so, and other times I think it would be cool to see the future, even though much of Fl won't be habitable for more than aquatic life, and other such problems, and relatively soon. Wow, that got off topic. My brain does that, and my filters have apparently all stopped functioning.
"Let's assume we're the sort of machinists who doesn't get hung up on exact dimensions" - That was the joke that pushed me over the edge on this one, well done sir!
"Not so fast there, tool-snapping, unemployable machinist."
Pretty fuckin funny man.
*ToT, how do you keep your hands so clean?*
@@1nvisible1 Professional pedicure? Are you sure it's not his wife's hands on camera? Maybe we've been lied to all these years. 🤣
Impeccable deadpan delivery, I had to replay it, make sure I heard him right.
Oh it’s great to see ToT again! Anybody else just go back and rewatch his other videos because no other machinist channels hit the spot like he does?
thanks Gage!
@@ThisOldTony any tips on stuck collet holder's and stuck drils and endmills... When i try to get my endmill out , it's stuck. , i tried oil and grease but even then hard to get out ..... I asked a seccond hand machine dealer but he doesnt vidle around with the smallest conus. Most of my gear says , its german or made in the ddr , ... Only the collet holder... Has some brand on it i hardly can read
All the time! In addition to the other channels people mentioned, I highly recommend Blondihacks
@@evanbarnes9984 blondihacks made me realize that hobby machining is not for me. she sure makes it looks excruciating and time consuming with not much reward for the effort and money.
@@ssl3546 Blondihacks is more than a hobby machinist, even though that’s what she says she it. She would do well any place she goes.
When talking about the different names, and NOT saying “collet what you want” but saying you had no other jokes. Broke my heart.
Well tot, tonight I tapped my first hole. 1/4" npt. I've got you to thank for the angle grinder, welder, and everything else related to metal working I now have, acquired over several tough years.
Thanks man
Your writing always gives me the chuckles but it's the editing that really makes me pause the video to laugh. No one has better placed, harder cuts than this particular old Tony
Seamless editing every damn time. It's almost like they're done in 1 take.
Thanks ScottCalv [...]
Hi Tony
Just noticed 1 more thing that will mess your runout up,at 16:51 when you unscrew your colletnut you can see that the collet is twisted,if you check the slits in the collet they are not all the same size and they should be,the collet is not slipping in the nut and holder at the same rate when you tighten it. Just to add more complexity to the sphincterholding of tools ;).
collet quality aside, the proper torque values are really important. It is especially easy to over-torque small collets which can cause them to skew or warp slightly
very true!
Ah... but does the china crap come with a torque spec? Or are those specs baked into the "ER" good book?
@@zitt Torque for a given collet will always be the same regardless of manufacturer simply because of the geometry of the collet. What changes torque values more than anything is using different types of collet nuts.
Can you get a crows foot ER wrench to fit a torque wrench?
@@mikeybeamish I would expect your ER wrench to be a standard imperial or metric size. I have a "hobby grade" CNC with a huanyang spindle and ER20 collets. The wrenches I use are 23mm and 30mm. You should be able to find a suitable crow's foot.
By God Tony, this explains the massive variation in the amount of engraving I get with those tiny God damned needle point cutters. I went and checked the alignment with the dial gauge and it was a 0.1mm misalignment. I found a position between the collet and the shaft that ends up at around 0.01 and the purr is gone.
Thank you so much!!!!
Good video, as a old guy getting into hobby mills, tiny bits of information like this can really help with troubleshooting, honestly would have taken me ten time as long as your wife did to figure this out on my own
My hobby is woodworking, but some of the same rules apply. My Dad taught me to buy quality tools. I don’t have enough money to buy the cheap stuff. “Buy once, cry once”, is so accurate. Thanks for a great video!
I hate it when I'm working on something and my drill dies, then I gotta hold the trigger in and spin around the bench. It's worse when it happens while I m hanging drywall...
@Will Swift Potentially, but that entire time you're also working with tools that don't perform as well. I also generally prefer to spend money with the people who try to do a good job with what they manufacture rather than hoping to sell you 10 of the same flawed thing when the others break.
Some tools you can cheap out on. Others are definitely worth forking out for a higher quality, even if you don't use them very often.
I still believe in "buy cheap, if it breaks, buy expensive" because there are actually a handful of tools that I literally used just once, then there are others that were cheap but are surprisingly good. I saved money by buying cheap stuff for those. Only some things where I know I'm gonna use it a ton, I bought the good things right away, like with my table saw.
Hi Tony, another great video. Yes I have a set of chinese ER32 collets and yes they have run out, I found loads of swarf left in the slots when I inspected them, stops them closing up equally. I cleaned them up somewhat and this helped. Another trick I found which helped was to rework the collet by putting it in the collet chuck on the lathe without a piece of work and close them right up and dress them with some tool steel rod and abrasive paste. That helped and I now have a set of fairly acurate ER32 collets. I tried the same trick with ER11 though and they are just junk, even after remachining the collet. I must keep my eyes open for some 2nd hand decent ones. Thanks you for all you video's Tony, I look forward to each of your productions.
Tried to make my wife watch this gem with me to explain why I'm sinking a ton of holding into my tool fund. She's still giggling about the sphincter joke, so we're not done yet.
Tony, being I was a machinist in the tool and die trade I have a good appreciation for your channel.
I moved into engineering when all the work in my area moved away. Now I just do machining at home as a hobby. We are in this predicament today (loss of manufacturing and garbage import products) because of corporate greed moving all their manufacturing to China. Now we have crap tools made of Chinesium that don't measure up to what they are supposed to. You may be able to tune those cheap collets up just by removing those burrs.
Thats not corporate greed. Thats called "Too much government Tax". A company has to make a profit or it won't survive. If you can pay 8% tax here and 28% there then the company would stay here versus there. Governments can either attract business or they can run them off and the U.S is certainly running them off!
As a long time runout advocate, thank you for bringing runout into the forefront of the public, even for people who have no idea.
My solution to cheap er collets was to buy two sets. After deburring and testing them I ended up with 19 acceptable collets, seven duplicates in the set of 12, I then purchased a “good” one to fill out the complete set to 12. $3 x 24 + $18 = $90. Or $7.50 a collet. We won’t discuss the number of or cost of the broken end mills … great video.. wish I had seen it before I busted a bunch of … we’ll never mind .. thank for the great videos
I am not a machinist. Don't even own a drill press, but I've enjoyed all your videos, Tony. Keep up the great work.
Do you own a file?
this is 18 minutes of pure pleasure! the story and the information is dipped in a jar of comedy served to us! i really wanna thank you Tony!
Glad to hear it Fille... since I cried the whole time. ;)
At my former place of work, we used a five thou diameter end mill on one of our processes in stainless. Five thou! .005! You could break the thing by looking at it funny.
Sometimes I'd spend upwards of 20 minutes just dialing in the runout to a tenth or less. During that, I'd swap out collects, knock the collet around with a mallet, swap, measure, swap, measure. You learn pretty quickly that some collets are just wildly better than others. And some tools holders are just not up to the task. Cheers, thanks for the video.
Your sense of humor is awesome. I am too broke for any machines, but now I know. Thanks. Happy Holidays.
this entire video has been a learning experience to me
i knew literally nothing about milling, collets, or even run outs.
your videos are really well done and easy to follow along with, one of the best 19 minutes of youtube i've watched
keep up the stellar work my friend
Wow. Well then, you're in for a treat.
He slices, he dices, and his one-inch punch cuts steel like butter.
Just avoid the control panel labeled "Time Machine".
Another rock solid video TOT! As a non-machinist who aspires to do more with this hobby I totally understand the conflict. The "how much of this hobby am I doing to justify the higher price tool" dilemma is real. Lots to think about and thanks a ton for sharing. BTW @14:03 I was sure you where going to cut to kids hands for the "kid in me" part like the old Frosted Mini-Wheats commercials.
Your progress through the hobby dictates it. As you get better, you need better tools. And with better tools, you can move on to bigger and better builds...
I'm a scale modeller for example. You start with cheap paints and brushes, get to the point where you can't improve your models because your brushes and paints are now the limiting factor - so you upgrade...
@@richbuilds_com That's also been my approach with learning to play the bass. At my level I can't tell the difference between a $200 and $2000 guitar while fumbling through major scales and Seven Nation Army
Glad to see you back. I can't remember ever getting a chuckle over someone staying silent after a sentence for 12 seconds. @1:47
Ditto. This was a classic TOT moment.
You and Abom are held in a really high place to me as far as machining goes, with that being said I really would've love to see you boar those collet into true center on the lath just as much as I wanted to see abom split those breaks calipers without using that funky vise
the price of watchin' RUclips - free. The lessons I learn from your videos - priceless! Thank you, This Old Tony!
Thank you. I discovered your channel back when I had just started school for machining. I owe a lot of my grades and successes in school and since to learning the basics on your channel. I am now a machinist cutting graphite electrodes holding 0.0002 tolerance and would not have made it here as quickly without your channel
I’ve definitely used the indexing method for compensating for run out in a collet, 9 out of 10 times it does the trick! Thanks Old Tony!
"Since when did it become OK to sell junk?" I've forgotten how many times ive asked myself the same question. I'm not a machinist. I'm a PC guy. But the question still stands. Thanks for another great Vid TOT!!!!!
Coming from woodworking as a hobby I now know how I can even spend more on tools: do metalworking instead. So maybe I stick with the thing I can barely afford a little bit longer. But your videos are a joy to watch and I can learn something about I may never use, but the heck, they are funny and so well made! Would even watch you unboxing and using cheap tools with death runout of doom, as long as you wear the heavy duty security flip flops. Please don´t stop making videos.
Holy shit, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a RUclipsr with a better sense of humor than this man. Never did I think I’d find THE internet funny man in a machining video of all places
This Old Tony is BACK! This was one of the most entertaining videos I've seen in a long time. Boy, finding out the solution AFTER breaking good tooling is cathartic and mind-numbing - at the same time! I think we've all been there. And THAT'S how the high end stuff gets us: the cheap stuff drives us SCREAMING to them.
I have a lawnmower that does that... 🙄
The moment you mentioned broken tools I knew exactly what the problem was... somehow I'm pretty sure I've learned it from watching your videos, when ever you throw something in the chuck that is already machined you always center it correctly to avoid errors and or broken tools.
Some how I though you've already made a video on this issue, but I'm glad I actually learned something from your, and you should be proud to know that your videos are teaching people about machining... because I'm not even a machinist, don't own a shop, don't have a single power tool bigger then a 18v drill, yet somehow I've learned enough from your videos to diagnose the issue like a backseat machinist :D
You saved me. I was just about to buy those $3/ea. ER16 collets. Went ahead and upgraded to the $3.15 collets. Thanks TOT.
those are just bit better baggies, lol
Thanks for posting. Even for a rant-video you manage to sneak information, jokes and high production value in.
Never put your vids in the "trash" - they are all gold. I'm either learning something or having a good laugh. Thank you sir!
Trying to fix the runout of a cheap er collet and holder might make for a really interesting video, if it's feasible. Seeing you go for super precise stuff like scraping in ways or measuring vices is always cool
I got. 0003 out of Chinese 2$ ER11 collets. Their ER16's were closer to a thou
I do enjoy the no talking just hands walking and turning expensive metal into scrap
@@jodygarcia9892 You aren't kidding. Raw stock is freaking expensive now where I live in Canuckistan. Doesn't matter if it's wood or metal. Where I live MDF is the same price as clear select or better pine.
Don't even get me started on baltic birch plywood. 2 years ago I was paying $62 a sheet. Now? $149.00. Trying making a living with your costs increasing by 2.5x.
This explains all the issues I've been having with my 3d printed Dremel endmill! Thank you!
Actually very helpful to know!! I have used collets many times but never considered they could be a source of error. Thanks so much Tony! Cheers 🎉
@ThisOldTony man, that collet really turned on you. Like it Shanked you :)
Every point of contact is potential point of failrue. From spindle runout, spindle taper to holder contact, holder itself, collet in holder and tool itself. All those things stack up and get way bigger when tools and holders get longer.
I learned about RO when I built my CNC router and was looking for actual smaller chucks for my Porter Cable router instead of the cheap insert. Sure the 1/4" to 1/8" holds the bit but how WELL does it hold the bit?
I was pleased when I made my cnc so it was repeatable .0001". Little did I know that could be thrown out by a cheap adapter.
I don't need to know about Collets but hey, you made a really fun video and that "when did it become okay to sell trash" really resonates across many consumer markets.
Tony, I've been a Machinist for over 40 years, love the trade. Most of that time was spent in the USAF working on aircraft. There were many times during the lean budget times when getting replacement tooling could become about impossible. So we were forced to think outside of the box a lot. One thing I found that worked for me was to make an adapter for end mills and other cutters that would work in a set of collets.
Basically, it was a piece of round stock that I turned on a lathe to make sure it was straight and sized for the collet. Drilled and reamed a hole for the shank size of the end mill, tapered the end and then drilled and tapped a hole for a set screw to lock the end-mill in the holder. I always used a set screw that would fit flush or had minimal amount sticking out. Grinding a small flat like a Weldon shank works if the end mill slips if you are taking heavy cuts with larger cutters. For the smaller end-mills, you can do that to both ends of the rod for two size end mills, like 1/4 on one side and 5/16 or 3/8 on the other end.
I made up a set like that for 1/2, 3/4 and 1" collets for practically every size end mill we had. If you have some nice stainless steel round stock that works best and you don't have to worry about corrosion. If you only have a few good running collets this works and you don't have to have to buy one size collet of all your different size end mills. An additional benefit is that you can extend the cutter down from the spindle.
Over the years I've made dozens of these holders and they always worked great. But this is just a suggestion from things that worked for me.
I haven't touched a mill or lathe in over 10 years, as I'm now in the polygon and pixel-pushing business, but it's amazing to see how a crappy tool can ruin your day regardless of the field. Thanks Tony!
I’ve explained my work as a machinist as a long and expensive journey to disappointment. The stuff I make is so complicated on such tight turn around times there is almost always some aspect I wish turned out better. One day I broke 7 $125 drills and got zero useable holes. 2 I broke just getting them out of the packaging. They were 0.001" diameter. When I got them to work, I drilled 460 holes with one then 20 more holes with 3 drills. It kept me up at night.
RM: Please tell us more about the type of equipment used to drill such holes. What kind of drill chuck, if any?
@@BasementEngineer I was using a Haas DM-2 with a 80,000 rpm auxiliary air spindle that I set the run out on with an optical comparator. There are special laser systems to dial in drills that small, but I don’t have one. It was a big learning experience. The goal was to filter liquid medium for cell cultures but we ended up making a filter cartridge using PEEK mesh instead.
That reminds me of something I discovered a couple of years ago. I knew someone who was new to drag racing & he was venting to me about problems w/ what he said was 'Loctite failure' on critical fasteners. I suggested he may need to safety wire them, then went on to explain the theory & application of safety wiring. (I have some aviation background & plenty of pre-Loctite era racing experience.)
I offered to buy him some cross drilled replacement bolts, plus a safety wire kit & show him how it's done, to help him out.
Then I priced the bolts & crapped my knickers! Hell, I could buy 1,000 non-cross drilled gr 8 SHCS, (socket head cap screws), for the price of 24 pre-drilled bolts.
I've used my fair share of safety wire & have the puncture scars to remind me, but I've never cross drilled a bolt head in 50+ years of building hot rods, race cars, & such, so I went to the Internet to see how/what there as to the process.
All I heard or read was 'buy lots of drill bits cause you'll break them by the dozens.'
I pondered the problem for a bit, then ordered drill bits, 0.035", if memory serves, (not 0.001", but still small.), some hardened drill guides & reamers to match.
I put a scrap of 6061 T6 in my mill & seat of the pants designed a drill jig for cross drilling SHCS.
I made sure to anchor the SHCS in the jig w/ cross bolts & press fit the drill guides. With my scrap metal jig, I embarked on my 1st every journey of cross drilling bolt heads. I played with drill RPM & feed rate & found how easy it was to wear bits if you get too aggressive, but I didn't break any.
I wore 3-4 bits searching for optimal RPM & rate, then drilled 47 bolts w/ the 4th bit, & 25 more w/ the 5th. I boxed up the 5th bit w/ the jig, the rest of a 100 box of SHCS, the drilled fasteners, along w/ a safety wire kit & took them to the kid, (he's 34, but to an ancient fart like me, he's a kid.)
He no longer has 'Loctite failure' problems & I have a bunch of extra 0.35" drill bits! (Need any, I bought lots! LOL)
I also have some newly acquired knowledge & experience about drill guides & drilling jigs.
Hopefully I'll live long enough to put it to use & pay for my gift to the kid, at the very least. LOL
Hope you enjoyed my tale as much as the kid enjoys not having Loctite failure.
GeoD
PS
I'm surprised EDM is not being used for 0.001" holes. Isn't that right in EDM's application wheelhouse? (That statement exhausts the extent of my EDM knowledge/experience...)
@@georgedennison3338 what s edm ? Electronic dance music ?
that is wild!
I love how the confirmation bias-enforcing argument of "buy once, cry once" (I can attest to my bias for buying nice tools, and the many forms that argument can take while convincing a significant other that, yes, I do *need* that $600 ), faded into the "If you give a mouse a cookie" argument. Because I can also attest to my love of cookies--gotta get the good saw blades to go with that new cordless skill saw, and probably a bigger battery than what comes with the stock kit while we're at it!
A recommendation I heard is buy it once for really cheap and by the point it wears out (if it does at all) you'll know what exactly you need. Doesn't really work on the example of collets though.
It really does become a slippery slope when you're trying to hit dead on accuracy. If any tool in the chain is faulty, it invalidates all of the money spent on the others. But at the same time, you'll go broke halfway to a great setup if you're only buying the best. So I think the real lesson is to empty your pockets on testing equipment like gauges and then try your luck with the remainder, testing it all along the way to see if you got a crapper.
@@Beakerbite Or buy junk gauges so that you'll never know how crappy everything else is?
@@Beakerbite on endmills that have a hair of runout, it's possible to hit fairly accurate cuts if you mill a slot and then measure it and use that for your diameter offset. Then make sure you cut near the bottom of the tool so that it's always cutting with the widest point of runout to get the most square cut possible. Or just buy quality tools and don't bother with that
Hi Tony. The hydraulic thingie is used to release the tool holder and a disc spring thingie is use to hold it in place. Cheers
This is the video I needed, but not the video I deserve. I bought Chinesium collets knowing they were crap, and that better ones existed. I was oblivious to the issue (by choice/laziness), but you've convinced me. I also learned that it's much easier to just buy the clock measure as opposed to actually using it and dealing with reality 🙈
Was really hoping that you were gonna show a super-slick way of fixing substandard collets....😆 My issues weren't recycled garbage from China; but more dents/dings/galling from previous use. A new "quality" (=$$) set and a complicated setup (for me) spindle regrind corrected the issues-
Thanks for the video!
You could likely slip an expanding arbor into them and set up between centers and use a tool post grinder to true them. Or if the issue was internal and you have a known true collet chuck you could set that up and use a ream to take them up to the next size.
Hey tony! Thanks as always for the entertainment! I don’t work as a machinist or welder, nor do I own any metal working tools, except maybe for a handheld grinder. But I always look forward to watching your videos. They are very entertaining as well as educational, and if I had a larger working space, your videos would make me want to get more into the world of metal. 😁
it's the siren's call!
Came here to say the same :) Whoop!
@@ThisOldTony it really is 😁 but I’m ok with that for my demise
This lesson can be applied to so many other parts of life. Thanks for reminding us. Thanks for sharing.
Hey Tony, I want to thank you for putting me down this hobby path to help with my hobby racecar. Between the cost of the mill and lathe, tooling, time, learning, wasted stock and frustration…ahhhh it really is fun and rewarding. Thanks!
Your grasp of comedy is epic… You had me staring at the R8 and 5C until the exact moment I burst out awkwardly laughing - and I probably didn’t even get the joke if ther was one beyond “mkay, good to know…”, I ain’t a machinist.
My nan had a saying about buying cheap & inevitably buying twice, which i forget, but i think she was making a similar point to yours.
Always a joy watching your videos, Old Tony.
How about “Buy once, Cry once”? I know that one’s true, sometimes you have to pick and choose what you’re going to scrimp on.
Buy it nice or buy it twice?
Great description on chip load and wobble! I'm still learning a lot and appreciate in-depth info and the price/budget conversation too. Cheers!
I love your videos. Your humor makes learning about the most mundane thing machine related is much appreciated. I don’t even machine, I find your channel quite educational. Great content! I’m a fan! 🤟🏼
Hi Tony, thanks for throwing some light on this murky subject. We foolish hobby machinists are always looking for a "good" deal, but there are some areas where it is too deadly to compromise. Can't tell you what a revelation I had when I finally got a decent milling vise and suitable parallels - things actually turn out square and true!
I have no idea what a collet is , or how a $3 collet can be worth more or less than $3, but a 19 minute video about it must teach me something!
Hi Tony - I have no intention of ever buying so much as a piece of machinist equipment. But I still love your videos been watching for years. Can't put my finger on it but for some reason you are my favourite youtuber.
Man one of the best "mistakes" I ever made was buying used toolholders early on.
After purchasing my older style cnc mill and trying to tool it up on the little bit of leftover cash I still had, I initially bought a couple of nmtb40 er32 toolholders from Glacern (which I've been very pleased with... not to mention their awesome customer service), but like you said they were like a 150 each. Found a guy on ebay trying to sell 5 packs of older used Universal/Devlieg nmtb40 toolholders for something like 100 bucks for 5 (with the collet nuts). Like I said this was super early on in me trying to figure out the never ending world of machine tools, but the guy straight up lied to me when I asked if they were for er32 collets (either that or he was even more ignorant than I was back then) so I wound up getting 5 toolholders designed for Acura-Flex collets. Only 1 out of the 5 was so abused that I wouldn't use it, the rest just needed some cleaning up, but then I had to go and travel down the rabbit hole of "non-er" collet systems (despite the fact I'd just bought a decent set of er collets. Wound up finding out that not only were the acura-flex collets more expensive but so were the toolholders and collet nuts (So I really made off like a bandit for how cheap I got those 4 good holders & 5 good nuts for). Even better tho, was that while it seems to be a collet system that isn't super prominent anymore, they actually hold tighter tolerances than the standard for er collets, and the collets were available in practically every odd one-off size you dont always see. Obviously I use both systems now, but I'd have never even known to look for other styles of collets had that dude not tried to screw me out of a hundred bucks, so hats off to him! lol
Thanks for sharing that, I do appreciate the wisdom and insight.
@@rufusconnolly8489 No problem dude! I was actually planning on doing a quick video on my little channel (and I mean little lol) showing the difference between these 2 collet systems within the next week. Probably wont be anything special, but should check it out for some visual comparisons/references & each in use if you're looking into buying something similar. Also, even though Universal/Devlieg's website looks kinda outdated, they are very much still in business (thats where I've been buying my acura-flex collets from. You can find em used on ebay but Ive had less luck with the condition of dirt cheap collets than I have toolholders.) Not to mention, they've also got a few more styles of lesser known collets systems on their website that may be worth looking into.
Good info there. Another point is keeping the collets and chucks spotlessly clean. If you have one, try using an ultrasonic cleaning bath from time to time. This is a trick that Stefan Gotteswinter advocates and has covered it in one of his superb videos.
I never came across the burring problem but now aware of it will check my stock of "budget" ER collets. Cheers Tony 👍.
ToT made it a bit simpler than the actual situation by assuming the collet's work holding (eccentric) axis was nevertheless parallel to the machine spindle's axis of rotation. In real life that's unlikely, in which case the tip of the tool may be orbiting three or four times as much as the shank was where he measured it.
It's a little more difficult to measure runout accurately once you get to the cutting part of an end milling cutter, but it's important to clock the runout close to the business end.
@@Gottenhimfella instead of a tool you can put a measuring pin in the collet and check the runout at the collet end as well as the tip.
Well you did it again. I read the title and thought I don’t care anything about collets and then watched every second of the vid enthralled. You are the Master Sorcerer of Yt
I'm not a machinist and I'll never be buying collets but you've just described why buying a good quality tool actually saves you in the long run. Longevity for one. I have some tools my dad got 60+ years ago that are still better than some you can get today (wrenches and sockets) Blackhawk (well before it was bought by Proto in the 80s) for instance.
Anyhow. Very interesting and amazing that what you buy isn't always what you get as far as tolerances etc. and how it can lead to very expensive frustration.
You are an excellent and amazing teacher.
Thank you.
every one of your vids is an instant like! for two years i worked in my college's metal workshop as student monitor, and i watched and rewatched everyone of your videos, and you gave me so much inspiration, knowledge and good laughs for what i was doing! thank you so very much!
my pleasure and thanks JTI!
Your college has a metal shop? Where I live they deleted all the trades out of highschools and now the government wonders why we're short 450,000 skilled tradesmen.
@@muskokamike127 in Portugal, depending on the areas, it is quite normal to have either full dedicated schools to trades (such as welding, drafting and/or machining). In my case, I studied (still study) Product Design in college, but mine is specially known for having great shops, for wood, metal and all that jazz! Even ceramics!
@@TheJonhyGames that's great, we're way behind in that here. And they wonder why we're short of tradesmen?
Thanks for busting out the "good book" and showing how its used. A friend lent me his when I got my mini-lathe, but I didn't know what to do with it so I gave it back. Showing what information can be found in the Machinery's Handbook (or any tech manual), and how it is used, is valuable to any greenhorn in a technical profession.
I've unfortunately been involved in many different industries and the thing I hate, in all of them, they all have their own acronyms and language.
When I got involved with cnc and built my own router table. I raged against 'backlash" Sorry, just no. I got into it with many a machinist over that term. "it's always been called backlash"!!! they railed. Sorry no, just because you've been calling it the wrong term for 1000 years doesn't make it right. It isn't backlash, it's slack. If you don't know, backlash is used to describe the "pause" in a ball screw or ? when you turn it, and the driven nut doesn't react right away.
Then you get into SRO PPO DRO FFO TIR TAC and that's when I chime in with GFY..."what's gfy"? Google it!!!
@@muskokamike127 so........ exactly what was going on with your router table that you're so adamant _wasn't_ backlash?
@@Iceberg86300 the literal definition of "backlash" is something that occurs after something else happens.
In machining, it is used to describe what ISN'T happening aka the ball nut isn't moving immediately when the ball screw turns. That is SLOP or SLACK.
Backlash is what happens when you say something outrageous in public and people react to it. In machining, when your ball nut doesn't move immediately, that is a DELAYED reaction.
@@muskokamike127 I'm 100% with you on the acronyms, but the definition of backlash seems like a very odd hill to choose to die on. B/c you do realize that words *_can_* have multiple meanings, correct? (See the bottom of this comment) I'd also put a lot of money on the definition of "backlash," that you so vehemently disapprove of, being widely accepted in the engineering/technical community for far longer than you or I have been alive.
Probably entered use around the same time that "lash" began to be used to describe the clearance between parts of a mechanical actuator. Which is much more difficult to find in a dictionary.
You're obviously free to call it "SLOP" or "SLACK" if you wish, and I know nothing I say will be able to sway you, but backlash is a far better term b/c of it's specificity & widely accepted meaning in the engineering/technical/industrial realms. Which is "lost motion."
"Slop" & "slack" tend to be reserved for excessive clearance & describing cable/chain/belting/etc, respectively.
Dictionary References:
Dictionary dot com:
"3 Machinery.
a) the space between the thickness of a gear tooth and the width of the space between teeth in the mating gear, designed to allow for a film of lubricant, binding from heat expansion and eccentricity, or manufacturing inaccuracies.
b) play or lost motion between loosely fitting machine parts."
OED via Google:
"2. recoil arising between parts of a mechanism.
-degree of play between parts of a mechanism.
"typical gearbox backlash in these systems is 2°""
Merriam Webster:
"1 a: a sudden violent backward movement or reaction
b: the play between adjacent movable parts (as in a series of gears)"
@@Iceberg86300 Yes I realize words can have multiple meanings and usually they are not the opposite of each other. Yes I realize merriam webster uses the machinist's definition as well. To put it another way: would you accept the definition of "tall" as: a person or object that is higher in stature and a person or object that is smaller in stature?
As for "a hill to die on" nope, it's just an example of how many trades, vocations etc have their own nomenclature some of them not very accurate.
Tell me you haven't opened up assembly instructions and upon reading you haven't a clue wtf they are asking you to do? I used to do just that, write instruction manuals and I was praised for the simplicity and ease people could follow them. See, I've worked in many different fields and learned the KISS method of operating.
Hi Tony, thanks for the videos.
I bought a set of ER 25 collets based on the largest diameter material I could pass through the spindle of my Myford lathe. I also purchased a Morse taper #2 collet chuck and a few extra collet nuts all in ER 25. The Morse chuck had no observable runout but the 3/8" endmill in the appropriate ER collet was terrible at about 5 thou straight out of it's pretty little yellow box.
A 1/4" wasn't much better. I decided to clean them all in engine cleaner with a stiff bristle, industrial style, "tooth brush". The crap that came out was unbelievable. Then I looked at the slots carefully. Almost every one had a "tail" of swarf from the slitting device, some short some as long as the slit. I ran a small box cutter down each slit removing any swarf and then a small triangular file down the inside and outside edges of the slits followed by another washing and blow dry with compressed air. Subsequent tests with the same end mills reduced runout to less than 0.001". So, in the sizes I tested, the thorough cleaning worked.
Since my lathe has a screw on spindle I decided to make my own screw on ER 25 collet chuck using one of the extra purchased nuts. The chuck is only machined and not ground but runout is still less than 0.001" with the same collets.
While I agree with you that buying chineseum items might be questionable, paying attention to cleaning before use pays off.
Sure buying starstruck or mightytoyo products will, in all likelihood give instant gratification, that's a fat load of use while you're still recovering from paying their price for one collet that would covered a whole set of the chineseum brand.
Regards from Canada's banana belt.
❄️🇨🇦🍌🥋🇺🇦🕊️🇺🇲💩🇨🇳👍
I like this idea. I bought a set a couple years ago and didn't even think to clean the slots.
My wife went to work for one of the major US metal working suppliers, (McMaster-Carr, Fastenal, Grainger league), & because of an incredibly generous employee purchasing program, I've been able to buy toys for my non-business shop, (I'm disabled/retirement age & make/fix all our stuff to stay busy & sane.)
I've been able to afford big name stuff to replace or supplement the cheap stuff I bought before she got this job.
What I discovered is there are several factors that impact the final quality of cheap tools & tooling:
A.
The emphasis of QC by the company having the product manufactured. If the company that puts their name on something stresses QC, then items made in China, India or Eastern Europe can be cheap & still be high quality.
Because the purchasing program is the employer's cost + 10%, I've seen just what they pay for their products, & it's been eye opening. Also, the company has a wide range of house brands either bought directly from the countries/regions mentioned, or from big name US/European manufacturers, (being the inquisitive/observant type, I've found numerous items identical to big namers, but at 30-40 of the cost, (supplier's cost, not retail cost). I have a LOT of house brand stuff in my shop, (hint, hint).
B.
When manufacturer's sell direct on eBay, (I have a theory I'll share further down.), they are selling at rock bottom prices because they feel that's what they have to do, due to a lack of brand recognition. To sell at those prices, they cut corners everywhere: cleaning, lubrication, packaging whereever they can.
Before my wife got her job, (my dream job for her! LOL), I discovered I could greatly extend the life of many Harbor Freight power tools simply by taking them apart & adequately lubing &/or replacing bushings w/ bearings or bronze gears w/ steel gears.
They used to sell a corded 4" side grinder w/ a major drive bushing made oversized & out of bronze. The over-sized bushing was the exact size of a replacement roller bearing. Once I discovered this, I quit killing grinders in 2-3 days; they'd last 2-3 years w/ a bearing.
My theory about direct eBay sales. I used to buy 90% of my materials & tools from China via eBay. I found the Chinese vendors great to deal w/ & open once you communicated w/ them in Chinese, (Google translate). Problems w/ returns ended, lack of specs & product info ended & relationships developed; generally, they are eager to please their customers. I discovered many of the sellers were either principals in the manufacturing company, or employees of the company, w/ the job of managing eBay sales.
My theory is many companies use eBay as a substitute for a samples program. If you venture onto US big name website, they all have a samples program for potential large quantity customers, (just try to get samples w/o a big company name-ain't gonna happen very often).
Using eBay makes it simple for China manufacturers to have a sample program at low cost. They just tell potential large volume customers to go to eBay & buy a sample for less than the cost of shipping. Notice most all Chinese eBay vendors have limited quantities available.
I never got a direct yes or no from the connections I made or the conversations I had, but NONE of them laughed at me, or told me I was off base w/ my theory. And I got lots of direct answers about different topics/areas. It does take a while to gain their trust.
What triggered this theory was a high volt/amp electronic relay I bought for ~$4.00, just to have some around & they were so inexpensive. My 3hp 80 gal Ingersol Rand uses a relay w/ the same specs & a repacement is several hundred dollars. A replacement primary coil cost me $80 fifteen years ago.
Six months after I bought several relays, I ran across them on the shelf, decided to get a spec sheet based on the brand & model. I traced them back to a Chinese company who specialized in electronic safety curtain barriers for the manufacturing industry. In the old days, a canvas curtain was hung between walk ways & machines which would maim or kill. They became known as safety curtains.
The modern version uses light emitting & light conducting diodes housed in what looks like an old single bulb 8' flourescent light fixture. When the beam is interrupted, the low voltage diode circuit triggers a relay which shuts down the high voltage/amperage machinery & turns on flashing lights & warning sirens.
I found the spec sheets for their in-house branded relays on their site along w/ a nearly $60 price tag for the relay. Now, why would this company sell the same item on eBay for ~$4.00 & free shipping.
I ordered two more to check the mailing address, it was the factory's address.
I never made a good contact w/ them, or got an answer as to why, but they verified the items I bought on eBay would be covered by them, for the 3 yr warranty.
There is a lot more going on in the industrial manufacturing world than most people are privy to, try to find out.
I've got even more info from my curiosity about tools & equipment and from decades prior, when I was a principle owner/investor in a computer manufacturer business. We imported components, directly, & that was a very wild west world.
GeoD
First thankyou for everything that you throw our way, makes scraping parts and tools more fun .Second , Sir ToT ,thankyou ,you ghave me the confidence to buy a used mill and that was a game change for my projects . On topic ,and related to your head space problem on the Shaublin , i use the ISO 30 direct colets , got them from Stefan's country at Paulimot .about 100 eur +shipping . only a metric set .They work for me fantastic . Did see some used ISO 40 sets in our local markets (Romania) so i guess those are an option to. Keep having fun Sir .
I don't machine, but I love watching machining videos, which is how I stumbled upon your channel.
I do however have a cnc router for wood and soft metals, and have struggled at times with breaking smaller bits with no explanation.
I too bought the el-cheapo ER20 collets because I didn't think it mattered, but now thanks to this video I can't wait to get home and check the run out on them.
If I find that the run out is minimal and couldn't be the problem, then I guess I have to accept the fact that the reason for the failures could only mean that I am idiot.
Either way, you have shown me the light.
Awesome content, good sir. I am subscribed.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, you are the Tarantino of RUclips. I don’t even do metalwork and still this is my favourite channel! 😀
One day I'll release the whole video collection without all the gun violence removed. Make for more exciting machining, but... RUclips regulations.
Man I needed this video! Thanks Tony! I got into your videos ~5 years ago, and am not the "mechanically inclined" guy in our research group, and your vids are the reason. Thanks!
did you mean "now"? because your comment could go 2 ways. ;)
My mom used to say, "I'm too poor to buy cheap" all the time. I didn't fully grasp that concept until I grew up and started buying stuff as well as assortments of accessories for said stuff. I generally still can't justify top of the line, but a step or two below that is okay with me.
This is the way.
Your videos are fun and very informative. Never checked the run out on a mill in a collet. Your the man; keep it up. Thank you for your time.
it's got to be 45 years since I used a milling machine, but this was strangely need to know. At least you mentioned a Dremel collet ;) Enjoyable content.
"Collets -- the sphincters of the machine world" 😀 That should be a framed quote in my shop!
This should be shown in machinist classes. Here's a pro tip: check the runout at the end of the tool on the flutes. Turning the tool in reverse, check if the high points are the same reading.
Got to do that with a 3/4" reamer that's about a foot long. Cutting aluminum, so I can't trust it to follow the hole and not cut over. Spend fifteen minutes tapping back and forth to get the last quarter thou of runout at the tip gone so I can hit tolerance on the hole, and then I leave it in the holder afterwards. Inevitably I run out of 5/8" collets and need to take it out, and that's when the same job rolls around again and I need to start over.
10min since posting, already 563 (including mine) thumbs up. Vid is 18:29 long. This is how you know you make good content. Don't even have to watch before liking it. Keep it up!
I feel like I've learned a valuable lesson about how much time machinists think about sphincters.
Really funny video, and even though I've never touched a mill in my life I feel like I've learned something fundamental about the trade. Thanks!
A lot of machinists do tend to be anal about their stuff.
Brilliant video! Yo have probably saved me thousands of bucks over the next few years! Thank you SOOOOO much!
Tony please don't second guess yourself about posting videos. I love all of them, even the ones where you're just having fun.
Absolutely… as James Earl Jones once said in that movie where some dude built a hockey rink in a beanfield or something, “If you post it, they will watch.”
My general tool purchasing philosophy has long been:
When I buy a new tool for the first time I buy the cheap tool, then use it till that one breaks or fails (ostensibly because it either turned out to be too crude for my needs or I’ve used it enough for it to wear out and break.)
But then when I replace the broken tool; I cough up the money and try to buy something I hope will last a lifetime.
While I might dream of genuine Rego collets, the sad fact is if I bought the originals, I would have spent so much that I could not afford much else. Caveat emptor. Maybe I can’t afford the dog.
It's always a good day when a ToT video drops.. 😁
Love your dry humour and production style as well as the invaluable information you include in you videos Tony 👍
Cheers from Australia
Thanks Gene!
Found an ole Atlas/Craftsman 12x54 lathe on CL needing some repair & parts to get it going. Maybe have $1000 in it now not including one single tool or holder for it. It'll be fun hunting tools for it this winter. Learning everything you can before wasting a big bunch of money really helps. THANKS Mr Tony
Cleaning the burs from my set indeed did wonders to it, don't forget to check the inside too. That had the worst of them. It's always good to remember that these cheap things aren't a product but more of a kit of parts thing. Assume that you'll need to put in quite some effort in finishing them in order to get decent performance out of whatever you bought cheaply
The man, the myth, the legend. He returns in our greatest hour of need. Thank you, This Old Tony, for all that you do for us!
Amen.
Will there be a part 2 that lets us see the entire footage of that rocking collet finally stop on its own or is that too long for RUclips?
I’m glad you made this video Tony. Like many others I took an interest in machining from watching you and folks like Clickspring and Blondiehacks. After slowing building up tools and such from scrimping and saving I have a machine shop in my shed. Don’t get me wrong, I love my shop and the content you guys on the Tube of You create. But so many RUclipsrs use ER collets. Clikspring is kinda like a magician with his set… After a few years of putzing about in the shop I can safely say that my ER 40 collets have the least reliable hold on my cutters and parts. I hate them. I have made it a point of useing 5Cs and R8s when ever I can just because they have never let a part or cutter get pulled of of them. Are they cheap collets? I guess. Sure didn’t feel like it at the time. But a cheap 5C or R8 is a lot easier to deburr and true up.
JH: ER collets are MUCH better at work and tool holding than any C5 or R8 collet or similar. For cutter holding the latter two are absolutely terrible. It's because of this failure, the set-screw type of endmill holders were invented. I was forced to use R8's early in my career and detested them thoroughly.
To use C5 and R8 collets for endmills, an insane amount of torque needs to be applied to their draw bar to prevent the cutter from slipping in that collet.
I suggest that you verify the tightening torque specified by the manufacturer for your collets, and comply with that. Methinks that torque is quite high for an ER 40 collet, and two long wrenches will be needed to accomplish this.
Also check for burrs on the collet and the holder.
I use Morse taper #2 collets in my small mill in my home shop. These hold really tightly and and are a bear to release. Fortunately the spindle on the Bridgeport M head is equipped with a self-releasing draw bar, which makes using my collets a pleasure.
Never machined a thing and this is one of the best videos I've watched in ages
I am a welder (usually tig) and you have the old style of tig collets. I’ve switched to what’s called wedge collets. I’ve used one for about a year as opposed to wearing out the old style and having to replace them semi regularly. They don’t use the same mechanism to hold the tungsten as the other collets but they do the same thing, if that makes sense. Thanks for the vid, I liked it
I'm so sad that by 2:19 in the video, we have not seen a whatchama-collet.
💯
do you have a whatchamacollet?
Nope. They won't fit in a thingamajig...
Take my upvote and leave
So glad it made it to youtube! I absolutely hate small endmills too at work, they always seem to break on me. But looking back at it, our ERs are not treated so nicely, maybe its time to check runout next time that happens.
Also so glad to have gotten a video from you again, hope everythings a little better for you :)
The problem too is the endmill itself. I had a 2 flute with bottom cutting (for wood) and it chattered like an angry squirrel. Come to find out the flute length was different for each one. Into the FI bucket they all went.
@@muskokamike127 we have good quality endmills like garant and streuli so i doubt thats the problem
@@D3nn1s If you have an issue, you have to look at all the possibilities. Could be the end mill, could be the collett, could be user error (feed rate DOC or spindle speed).
You actually got a good batch. The ones I bought were three times worse, but the box they came in was really good which I put my good collets in.
Thank you for bringing this to my attention. Your videos are really a gem in the internet. Teaching and fun to watch at the same time. Greetings from a, now a little less frustrated, hobbyist in germany