The day a 3-jaw chuck failure made me switch to collet work

Was running a batch of 200 stainless shafts at Apex Machine in Tulsa when the jaws slipped and trashed the last 12 parts. Has anyone else had better luck with collet systems holding tight tolerances compared to standard chucks?

2 comments

2 Comments

valsullivan3d ago

Collets get too much credit in my book. A worn out 5C collet will slip just as bad as a scroll chuck, and I've seen it happen. @kevin_carr might have had good luck with his switch, but I bet his chuck was shot before he made the change. A quality 3-jaw with a backing plate and proper adjustment can hold those tolerances all day long if you know how to dial it in. The real issue is people not taking the time to clock their chuck or check for wear before running a critical job. Why swap to a whole new system when a 30 minute truing operation on your existing chuck would fix the problem?

kevin_carr3d ago

I had a 3-jaw eat into a batch of 304 stainless once at a shop in Dallas. Cost us almost a full shift to rework those parts. After that, I switched to a 5C collet setup for anything under 1 inch diameter. The repeatability is way better, especially if you're holding +/-0.0005. Even a cheap collet chuck on a manual lathe holds tighter than most scroll chucks once they wear a little. Just gotta make sure the collets are clean and not worn out themselves.