Collet Blocks – your advice please..

[MattKParticipant @mattk47317]

[MattKParticipant @mattk47317]

Hi,

Although I have a lathe and a mill, I am still building up my tooling and while I am looking out for a reasonably sized dividing head, my needs are usually pretty trivial in that I need to cut a square or hex end on a shaft. It seems to me that the common solution to this is to buy a 5C collet block, but I see now that there are ER collet blocks available. As I don't have either ER or 5C collets would I be better investing in ER collets as at least on the face of it, I think the ER collets may be more versatile than 5C or am I missing something?

As far as I understand it, ER collets have a 'range' of clamping sizes and can also be used to hold tools with a decent clamping force (with a chuck). Am I right in thinking 5C collets are not great at either of these points?

[Peter TuckerParticipant @petertucker86088]

Hi Matt,

Go with the ER collets.

Peter.

[peter walton 1Participant @peterwalton1]

The 5c have the advantage in that you can get other shapes than just round, square and hexagon ones.

If its just round stock then ER are the most versatile as each will cover almost 1mm whilst the 5c will only do 1/64th.

Get the ER ones.

Peter

[MattKParticipant @mattk47317]

Thanks Peter (x2), I forgot about the other shapes available in 5C. I don't seem to need this so ER it is then. I have a Bridgeport J head so I was thinking ER32?

[Sub MandrelParticipant @submandrel]

ER is compact, flexible and effective – it gets my vote. I use ER25, but if I had your a larger machine I'd go for ER32.

Neil

[magpieParticipant @magpie]

Hi Mat

I have a ER32 set and bought a pair of collet blocks from Arc Euro. Excellent bit of kit with lots of uses.

Cheers Derek.

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