collet storage ideas?

cyanidekid · Nov 30, 2022

looking for some inspiration/ideas on collet storage. I know the Hardinge swing out racks are pretty awesome, and having lots of Lista or Vidmar drawers with 3D printed trays is nice, but short of that type of high end solution, what have folks found works well?
talking R8 and 5C stuff and some ER25 too in my particular case. space is limited, and dollars as well.
is there some packaging or inexpensive parts or components that work well for you? pictures please...

turnworks · Nov 30, 2022

I remember seeing a wade lathe have a large cast aluminum 5c rack bolted to the inside of a cabinet door. The collets were all at an angle for each row. I don't remember how many it held but a decent amount. Wouldn't be too had to fab one out of some wood and hang on wall or the inside of a cabinet door.

I prefer Sierra brand storage but they take some surface space.

Edit: Wade 94 lathe you can see the collet rack in some of the old pictures

Mr.M · Nov 30, 2022

I used a $199 6' pallet rack and some plywood for Cat40 holders. For our lathe bushings I made a welded frame with a plywood face that holds them at an angle. Did it at about a 60° angle. Fairly compact, and 200+ bushings are readily visible. For my 5C at home I made a tray in a cheap toolbox as shown

beege · Nov 30, 2022

cyanidekid said:
looking for some inspiration/ideas on collet storage. I know the Hardinge swing out racks are pretty awesome, and having lots of Lista or Vidmar drawers with 3D printed trays is nice, but short of that type of high end solution, what have folks found works well?
talking R8 and 5C stuff and some ER25 too in my particular case. space is limited, and dollars as well.
is there some packaging or inexpensive parts or components that work well for you? pictures please...

PVC pipe or conduit glued together once worked for me

matthewlee · Nov 30, 2022

I 3d printed these and they work great for 5c collets in a lista cabinet.

M.B. Naegle · Nov 30, 2022

We have a couple of these in the tool crib for the bulk of our 5C collet storage. I don't' recall where we bought them, but they likely all come out of the same factory over there.
5C Collet Rack
For smaller collets like ER16, ER32, and TG100, we have some 2x4's with holes bored into them sitting in a tool cabinet.

Collets are one of those things you never finish buying, so whatever you do keep it scalable. The way I like to organize the shop though, if there's collet storage at an individual machine I stock it with the most general assortment, and the rest goes in the crib (via cabinet, tool box, shelf, etc.).

Ox · Dec 1, 2022

Durhum (sp?)

5C and 100/200/300DA's here:

(not sure why pics show up so small? Open in new tab and they open up)

-----------------

Think Snow Eh!
Ox

Chuck Evans · Dec 1, 2022

This started as a stop-gap measure but I think I will make a cabinet with a swing arm using these plastic MIG wire spools. 5C shown below but 2J and TG 150's can be made to fit.

Chuck

FredC · Dec 1, 2022

Here is an idea from John Welden https://www.practicalmachinist.com/forum/threads/new-machine-day-babin-hlv-h.319744/
I bought several 1 1/4 endmill/collet holder boxes (JL Tool Company, Tempe AZ) from MSC they hold 21 collets each if you skip every other row, so they do not bang into each other I do not think they are available anymore. MSC part number 09748229 holds 76 collets without them banging into each other it was made by Sierra American, Covina CA. It is by far the best one I have but it has no lid. I put a sheet of clear acrylic plastic across it to keep the dust and debris off the collets.

jccaclimber · Dec 2, 2022

+1 on the one Welden made linked above. I'm used to seeing those everywhere made of sheet metal, but that's because I know a guy with spare waterjet time. I like the one made from the MIG spool. I have 3d printer spools laying around waiting for the trash and that seems like a decent use.

laminar-flow · Dec 25, 2022

Here is my 5C collet rack I made 30 years ago. The top row is square and hex and metric, the next row down is 64ths, the next row down is 32nds, and the next row is 1/16, 1/8, 3/16, etc. Note how each step to the right gets larger. This makes for fast selection without much reading the number.

IceCzar · Dec 25, 2022

A question I've been considering

My design criteria includes having them stored away from "the elements in the shop) being a small shop that could range from abrasives, splatter, fumes to sawdust.

Cross breed the welding wire spool above (lazy Susan) with a slide out carousel in a cabinet.

Georgineer · Dec 26, 2022

laminar-flow said:
Here is my 5C collet rack I made 30 years ago. The top row is square and hex and metric, the next row down is 64ths, the next row down is 32nds, and the next row is 1/16, 1/8, 3/16, etc. Note how each step to the right gets larger. This makes for fast selection without much reading the number.

I like this, especially the staggered bottom row.

A question, though, for you or for anybody with similar experience: Your rack is made of wood; do you have any problems with corrosion where it touches the steel? I have always been very wary of storing bright steel in wood where there is any likelihood of moisture, and a rack like this (possibly made of oak?) in the open workshop looks to me like a recipe for problems. Is your workshop very dry or do you have some other secret?

George

cyanidekid · Dec 26, 2022

not to speak for the poster with the wood rack, but there are 2 factors in regards to wood and steel in contact, ambient RH, and wood dryness.
if either is off, there is a problem, if wood is dry, and location is dry, no problem.

(sodium chloride is a problem under any conditions)

Thunderjet · Dec 26, 2022

Georgineer said:
Your rack is made of wood; do you have any problems with corrosion where it touches the steel?

We made ours from pine, and no problems in 15 years.

Not as fancy as the one from Laminar, but it does the job.

When I started, they had all of their 5Cs is a plastic box. It was a nightmare finding anything.

I had the maintenance dude make the wood rack and it has saved me so much time when choosing a collet.

Just another stupid thing that can save you mountains of time over the life of the shop.

laminar-flow · Dec 26, 2022

Never had an issue with corrosion and I would not expect to. The wood was treated with linseed oil and my shop is part of my house and the door stays open all the time. We live in a high thermal mass passive solar house so the temperature stays around 70F + - 5 all year. Relative humidity stays around 55%. I have other collet racks made of other wood and need to make a few more. There may be some kinds of wood that would corrode steel but I'm not sure what they are.

Regarding the way it is organized, over the 30 years of reaching for collets it has saved me many times the time it took to make the rack. I do clean coolant and chips off the collets before putting them back. They do get some chips tossed up there so I occasionally have to get a vacuum. Notice on the left are some collet stops and chuck wrenches and on the right is the tailstock tooling and DRO. That 10EE has earned me plenty and it was fun doing it.

ducesrwld · Dec 26, 2022

we make some products out of 3/4" HDPE sheets so i have the luxury of remnants of this i pocket out all my ER and TG collets and for larger collets like 5c I build a raised rack again all out of HDPE makes it a breeze for cleaning and looks good stored away in toolbox drawers.

Toolmaker51 · Dec 26, 2022

laminar-flow said:
Here is my 5C collet rack I made 30 years ago. The top row is square and hex and metric, the next row down is 64ths, the next row down is 32nds, and the next row is 1/16, 1/8, 3/16, etc. Note how each step to the right gets larger. This makes for fast selection without much reading the number.

I agree, sequential arrangement is logical, but temptation to separate by 16ths, 32nds, 64ths remains. If so, label by decimal equivalents too. This stems from some getting used 10x as often. An alpha chart would be another solution.

jccaclimber · Dec 26, 2022

Toolmaker51 said:
I agree, sequential arrangement is logical, but temptation to separate by 16ths, 32nds, 64ths remains. If so, label by decimal equivalents too. This stems from some getting used 10x as often. An alpha chart would be another solution.

Have you thought about putting a colored ring around the holes for the common ones? One place I was at we had the generic rectangular grid and that made finding them a lot easier. That and labeling all the sizes so people would stop mixing them up.

Toolmaker51 · Dec 26, 2022

jccaclimber said:
Have you thought about putting a colored ring around the holes for the common ones? One place I was at we had the generic rectangular grid and that made finding them a lot easier. That and labeling all the sizes so people would stop mixing them up.

Lol. Did that for a set of ER"s, because it's a small enough tray to carry from storage to machine. In our climate, wood with a cover is best choice, easy to make and look 'proper'. 60 something pieces of 5C aren't so portable. Not counting squares, hex, emergency, and other varieties.

collet storage ideas?

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