A little gab about drawbar collet closers

[jwmay]

If you have a drawbar collet closer, do you leave it set up all the time? I have no experience with them. At one shop I worked at, the machinist only ever had it installed when he needed to use collets. At my current employer, I’ve noticed they’ve left the drawtube loaded all the time. To be clear, the machine has a 3 jaw on it 99% of the time.
Are there pros and cons to this? Or is it machine dependent?

I very much dislike collet chucks. But have stayed away from drawtube setups, because I also very much dislike finagling with attachments that aren’t mostly already installed. Plus the thing looks complicated enough that pieces of it could grow legs if it didn’t stay in one place.

I’m talking specifically about the type of closer pictured.

The only thing I can imagine, that leaving it installed all the time does that some would dislike is shrink the spindle through hole capacity. But I’ve got a 3/4” spindle capacity, and most of my work isn’t that small to begin with.

 

[Ulma Doctor]

in a production setting, there is not much of a faster way to get stock ready to be turned than a collet closer
i have a dedicated turret lathe that has the closer mounted continuously, but i can mount a chuck if necessary (very rarely)

if you are doing smaller diameter work, you'd be fine to keep the closer installed all the time and remove the system when you need the extra spindle space

short of that, it's personal preference

 

[BGHansen]

Others will chime in; the only disadvantage I see is the size of stock you can turn without running into the tube. I used to leave the collet attachment on my Grizzly lathe, but was doing a job with 1 1/2" stock and ran into the draw tube.

Full disclosure is I also have a Clausing 12" x 24" lathe that has a 5-C collet chuck on it. If I need to do work with a collet, I usually go to the Clausing instead of putting the collet closer on the Grizzly.

Another consideration are the threads on the draw tube for the 5-C collets. If you leave the tube in the headstock, I'm pretty sure they'd be susceptible to being dragged across if you stuck stock in through your chuck.

Bruce

 

[Winegrower]

Ulma and BG have nailed it. 14" Takisawa: I take mine out when not needed and I'd add it reduces the number of moving parts, and maybe a little bit of noise and vibration.

 

[talvare]

I never leave mine in the lathe when I'm not using it. Just don't like the possibility of damaging the threads in the draw tube.

Ted

 

[Nutfarmer]

The manual for my Hardinge says to remove it when not using it to avoid damage to the draw tube and the inside of the spindle. I figure they know more than I do. Collets are nice when there is a good surface to chuck on to. Like in a second operation.

 

[Jimsehr]

As a machinist with 70 years cutting metal mostly production I could not live without a lever collet closer. In production many second operations are done in seconds not minutes. All of my lathes have 5c lever collets . And I have many types of collets rubberflex collets, inside collets , dead length collets, emergency collets and more. Many times you can take the collet right from the lathe to the mill or drill press and you are good to go. Most of the time I can change from collet to chuck in just a few minutes. I almost forgot I use a lot of step collets.

 

[Jimsehr]

5c step collet
Also I take the collet tube out of
the lathe and set it near by and that a,takes a couple minutes.

 

[sdelivery]

The manual for my Hardinge says to remove it when not using it to avoid damage to the draw tube and the inside of the spindle. I figure they know more than I do. Collets are nice when there is a good surface to chuck on to. Like in a second operation.

BINGO

 

[jwmay]

Thanks everyone! Good to know.