On Mon, 30 Apr 2012 09:23:55 -0700, Bob La Londe wrote:
I put a collet holder chuck in the noname mill drill a while back and it
works great. A lot faster and easier than constantly tightening and
loosening the drawbar whenever I change anything. Its got a nice collet
closer wrench and a couple flats on the body that I can throw a regualr
wrench on to tighten and loosen quickly and easily. I like it so much I
bought a similar one for the RF30. It works pretty good, but there are
no flats on the body for a wrench. That means I still have to flip the
top and hold the pulley when tightening up a collet. Its tight enough
for the small stuff, but when I was doing some heavy (for me) face
milling with a 1" end mill I found that it seemed to walk up in the
collet. Holding the pulley I really have no way to judge how tight I am
making the collet, so I figured I'ld mill a couple flats body of the
collet chuck so I can use a wrench like the one in the smaller mill
drill. (never had a mill move in that one) Any suggestions?
I mean besides going back to using the straight R8 collets. Obviously
I'll have to use them to mill my flats, but then... For the most part
the convenience of using the collet chuck is a HUGE time saver.
That part doesn't need to be hardened to a fair-thee-well, so it may not
be "tool steel" per se. Can you file it? If so it's not that hard and,
you should be able to mill it with HSS. If a file skates, or if you
don't have a rigid enough machine to make it work, can you get at it with
a bench grinder? Can you disassemble the thing and _then_ get at it with
a bench grinder (this would relieve any anxiety about getting grit into
the works).
You don't really need flats -- it may be easier to get a nice hard drill
bit and make a few holes, then make a matching wrench (I don't know what
you call it, but it would be one with a semicircular gullet and a
reasonably hard pin that matches the diameter of the hole).
--
My liberal friends think I'm a conservative kook.
My conservative friends think I'm a liberal kook.
Why am I not happy that they have found common ground?
Tim Wescott, Communications, Control, Circuits & Software
http://www.wescottdesign.com