Proper Collet Use - Whoops

That’s how a collet nut should look. The off-center hole is how it catches the groove in the collet and makes sure it gets pulled out when you loosen the nut.

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i would say no. i typically put the collet into the nut loosely, and then slide the collet into the spindle and make sure the nut threads engage correctly.

my newbness is showing :man_facepalming:

That might be part of the reason for your runout.

Before you do anything else take the collet and look at the end with the short taper on it to check for damage. If there is none than take the collet and push it into the nut (you may find it easier to tilt the collet at an angle while pressing down and rotating it). It should snap into the nut and seat in the ground angle. Then when it’s assembled screw it into the spindle.

i definitely have not snapped the collet into the nut.

ill check my collet and after i take my foolish hat off.


a picture of my collets. not sure if that ring would be considered damage.

Yeah, I wouldn’t use those. That groove ground into the taper will smear into the nut. That will then offset and transfer/damage any other collet that’s used in those nuts.

The main idea with these types of collets is that you are centering them between two precision ground tapers (nut and spindle). When instead they get trapped in the extractor ring that will almost always skew them giving you runout. So that’s probably at least part of the issue you are having with runout.

@WillAdams looks like it was an ID10T error on my part. :person_facepalming:

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weeeeell s**t. off to buy some new collets i guess.

I wouldn’t call it being an idiot or stupid. It’s not intuitive. We sell a lot of collets and this is by far the most common error.

There may or may not be a very popular youtuber known for his tool reviews that machined out his “incorrectly made” collet due to a ring that was keeping the collet from inserting.

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the kind words are appreciated :slight_smile: live and learn i guess, and hopefully since its here for all to see someone else might see this thread and not make this mistake.

since im going to have to get new collets, should i pick up new collet nuts as well?

From your pictures your collet nuts look fine. What you will usually see when they need to be replaced is grooves or smeared material in the taper. I would clean them pretty good though to make sure you don’t have any pieces of metal waiting to fall into the taper. That second one is looking pretty dirty and anything between the tapers (nut or spindle) can offset the collet and add TIR.

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the second one is one I just pulled off the my Nomad to grab a picture. I always blow them out before putting them in the machine with an endmill.

Blowing them out is the minimum. Make sure you regularly check the tapers and collets for debris, lacquer, etc. You can use something like a very thin penetrating oil to clean with. Wipe away the excess to leave behind a monolayer of oil. That will also help with overall life of the collets, nuts, and spindle.

One last thing. You’ll probably want to reevaluate your feeds and speeds. One of the bigger issues with runout is that it effects your chipload with multi-flute tools. In the worse case, you can end up running your entire chipload on a single flute. In the not worse case your chipload goes up and down per flute as it rotates. Both lead to less than ideal surface finish.

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@TDA good to know, ill definitely have to find an oil to use to care for the collets.

I think in regards to feeds speeds i should be all set, ive been running the f & s @wmoy used in his material monday videos. i wrote them all down in an excel doc that so i can keep track of them for use.

(and i added them into my 1/8" tool in F360 too as presets since thats what i use most)

This should help.

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thanks, everyone pretty much said the same thing. hopefully my parts come out .2mm closer to dimension once some new collets come in.

I also made this mistake my first time using collets xD

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nice to know im not the only one.