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Collet Storage

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awemawson:
Having finished the fitting of the Hydraulic Collet Chuck to the Beaver TC-20 I now need to arrange safe storage for the 19 collets in the Crawford Multibore M673 collet range covering 4 to 42 mm.

(I have 18 of the range and have just bought the 19th on eBay)

Now adjacent to the Beaver TC lathe I have a handy set of tool drawers, the top one of which has been reserved for this use. However, loose collets just stuffed in a drawer is not good practice! VERY conveniently it just so happens that these collets snugly fit in a piece of 68 mm domestic rainwater down pipe.

So this morning I was off early doors to Screwfix and picked up a 2.5 metre length, and promptly cut it into short sections sized so that the top of the collet pokes it's head over the parapet. This is because, although the larger sizes can be extracted by putting a finger into them, this is not true of the smaller ones so the 'bit above the parapet' can be gripped.

I then tried several layouts in the drawer, aiming to maximise remaining space eventually settling on a simple rectangular arrangement.

(Long time followers may recall that when I was looking for storage for collets for the Traub lathe I used a similar technique)

Raining today so minimal chance of being caught borrowing the wife's clothes pegs so after putting down some guiding timbers on a bottom layer of cooking foil (hopefully avoiding it sticking down) I started gluing the bits of pipe with solvent adhesive. Using the clothes pegs to clamp them together.

I added a 20th pocket merely to make the rectangle slightly stronger - you never know I may end up with a spare collet to put in it!

All now done, all all I can do is wait for the solvent glue to set, so off for a coffee !

John Rudd:
Nice idea...  :bow:  Might have to copy that in principle for my ER32 set... :scratch:

awemawson:
Yes it works well John - OK if the pipe sizes work out OK!

So glue has dried, it didn't stick to the aluminium foil happily, and collets are now tucked away safely.

spuddevans:
Nice solution to keeping them together  :thumbup:

tom osselton:
Nice :thumbup:

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