When I was looking earlier I didn’t see any 1/8" collets for the ENCO, but I am looking to use some 1/8" and smaller cutting diameter end mills that need 1/8" collet. Is there supposed to be a 1/8" one somewhere? If not it looks like it will be cheaper for me to buy a 1/8" collet than to go up to a larger shank size for the small diameter end mills on mcmaster carr, but if there is a collet around somewhere I would rather save the $30.
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I also looked around and could not find an 1/8" collet for the Enco manual mill (the manual mill takes standard R8 collets). You are already aware of the one McMaster-Carr has for $30.62 (claimed runout 0.0007"):
MSC Direct lists one, but it’s a genuine Hardinge (claimed runout 0.0005", $94.84, yikes!):
https://www.mscdirect.com/product/details/97821755
If you don’t object to ordering from Amazon, they have one for $7.75 + $6 (call it $14, claimed runout 0.0006"):
I hope this helps.
P.S. The fancy photo ads above happened automagically, I did all 3 as simple links.
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Thanks for checking, it is a 30 minute drive each way for me so I really didn’t want to make the trip just to see if someone misplaced a collet. I guess I will order one and look into whether any paperwork needs to be done to donate it because I am only going to be using it at makeict and it might help someone else.
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That would be really great, thanks!
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An 1/8in collet is getting pretty small on the r8 side.
The other option is to find an 1/8in endmill with a larger shank (1/4in or larger). There may be one or two of those sitting with the deckel copy mill. I know we have some 1/4in end mills sitting over there, but i don’t recall if i had also ordered 1/8in end mills with a 1/4in shank.
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I ordered my own end mills to be sure they would be in good condition and I can take care of them, but when I was checking mcmaster carr the 1/8" shank 1/8" diameter cutter was $12 and the 1/4" shank was $50, so it makes more sense to buy the collet than the bigger shank, and they only offered smaller cutting diameters than 1/8" with a 1/8" shank, at least if I was looking in the right place on the website. I realize that the ENCO mill won’t achieve a very high level of precision, I need a slot with square corners but it doesn’t need to be super precise, so the tighter the radius I can get the less hand filing and chiseling I need to do.
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Nothing really wrong with using 1/8" tools with R8. It just gets harder to see the work because it gets covered by the spindle nose. I’ve done plenty of work that way. Avoid the temptation to leave a lot of tool stickout or you can get more runout and you increase the risk of breaking the EM.
I like to use ER16 collet chucks in an R8 spindle for small tooling like that. It does add stickout, and it’s another point for runout to enter the picture, but quality tooling helps.
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Sorry man, SOL on the spare endmills and collets for the deckel, likewise for all the hide-e-holes.
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