"ATP" wrote in message
.net...
I have my Van Norman #12 safely in my garage. I was going through the
tooling that came with it and have some basic questions concerning the 5V
collets and B&S taper adapters. From previous rec discussions I'm under
the
impression that most collets are for workholding purposes, and that end
mill
holders are ideal for driving end mills. I don't see any end mill holders
in
my tooling set or even on ebay, and it seems that workholding on a mill
would be limited to special operations, such as using the mill as a lathe.
Are collets typically used for end mills on these machines? I do have some
B&S #7 stuff, but it is obviously not as readily available as straight end
mills. Thanks.


Collets are a very satisfactory method of holding and driving your end
mills, and was most likely the only way the machine had been used. While
end mill adapters can be useful, they can also be a nuisance because of the
added depth necessary to accommodate them. They are not required for
manual machining, although they do serve a very valuable service in running
CNC machines, permitting consistent depth settings where one is involved in
repetitive changes of cutting tools.

Harold