Totally useless 5C collets

Check all far east goods right away and return any that are defective
Your CC company can help you with refunds if the vendor is stubborn
Don't put up with poor quality, it just encourages them to make more :eek 2:
 
Guys like me without deep pockets want to save as much $ as possible.
Every time we buy inexpensive we run the risk of less quality.
And I and others who push for the cheapest price drive quality down even further. Quality costs time and therefore money.

I hope that my dissatisfaction with the quality of many import items doesn't paint my brothers/sisters of asian descent and recent immigrants with the connotation of them somehow being inferior.

Daryl
MN
 
I worked with an equipment mechanic that I consider one of the greats. He earned the name "Professor" because he showed up on his first day with his tools and a wheel dolly of truck manuals. He used to say that poor people shouldn't ever buy cheap tools. Nothing saved by breaking junk while trying to do a job. Sage advice. The professor is still kicking, just a little older now.
 
I went on Amazon and bought a US made collet. What arrived was a cheap Chinese obviously cleaned and not in sealed plastic. I returned for a replacement and ordered 3 other items. I got another Cheap Chinese, one of the other items has also had a used defective item substituted and one item was bad out of the box (probably substituted). Only one item was okay. I got a refund on the three items. I see Amazon is selling Cheap Chinese collet sets. People must be buying the sets then swapping out the individual collets. When I complained, Amazon told me all of the items were marked as new....yeah right.

I assume the same is true for eBay as well.

Where can I get decent collets that have not been swapped out for a good price?
 
weston1968 said:
I went on Amazon and bought a US made collet. What arrived was a cheap Chinese obviously cleaned and not in sealed plastic. I returned for a replacement and ordered 3 other items. I got another Cheap Chinese, one of the other items has also had a used defective item substituted and one item was bad out of the box (probably substituted). Only one item was okay. I got a refund on the three items. I see Amazon is selling Cheap Chinese collet sets. People must be buying the sets then swapping out the individual collets. When I complained, Amazon told me all of the items were marked as new....yeah right.

I assume the same is true for eBay as well.

Where can I get decent collets that have not been swapped out for a good price?
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Lots of stories like that. Retail stores have a huge problem with people buying a product, taking it home and putting their old one in the new box. Then they take it to the return counter with the receipt and get their money back. They then put the new box with the used product back on the shelf and the next unsuspecting customer has to deal with it.

With stores having very loose return policies, it just makes it easier to shoplift one way or another... All the honest customers get to pay for it.

Ain't society wonderful?

To get better quality stuff you probably have to stay away from Amazon and Ebay and stick with regular sellers like McMaster or Shars or Little Machine shop and the like.
 
I'm done with Amazon. They are a retail outlet for the people's republic, nothing more. They're part of the reason why made in USA isn't a thing anymore. When I need a kung pao part, sure, Amazon is fast, but I'm sick of kung pao.
 
pontiac428 said:
I'm done with Amazon. They are a retail outlet for the people's republic, nothing more. They're part of the reason why made in USA isn't a thing anymore. When I need a kung pao part, sure, Amazon is fast, but I'm sick of kung pao.
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Good for you! I dropped prime 2 years ago. I still use Amazon sometimes. Recently I bought something from eBay that said usa shipping (Chinese item). They flat out lied, it came from China. The seller simply said if I wasn happy I could return it. I tried to open a dispute with eBay. I submitted that their product was misleading and stated why but I doubt eBay cared.

In the end the shipping time wasnt bad and I couldn’t find that price elsewhere but it’s a bunch of bull that it was listed as usa shipping.
 
T Bredehoft said:
You might try filling the slits with (one each, three pierces of the same) feeler stock and clamping the collets on them, then boring them out, on the other hand, they are probably hardened.
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weston1968 said:
On eBay I bought 21 odd sized collets, 64ths and 32nds, and they were great. They were from China and I assumed China was now making good collets. On eBay I then ordered a set of 5C collets from 1/16 to 1 1/16 for $72. The firs 4 I checked were so far out of spec they were useless ( .006" - .015" TIR ). I got a 50% refund so I have a bunch of $2 useless collets. Is there any way to bore out some of these collets to a good larger size?
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Are you trying to compare a set of collets you got for $72dollars with a set of collets from Hardinge for $2766 ?
Hardinge makes great 5c collets but you pay for them. I have been a machinist for 70 years and most of the time if parts being made that NEED to be dead concentric you make them out of bigger stock and machine them to size. And if second operation is needed use an expensive collet or bore a soft collet in the lathe. Another option is to buy a set true collet chuck. And dial the collets into how close you need them to run. Some machinist expect collets to run dead true. But sit down and see what it would cost if you made a collet from scratch. Cost of material would probably be more than 2 bucks . Add threading to the od and threading to the Id and heat treating cost and milling the slots.
 

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Jimsehr said:
Are you trying to compare a set of collets you got for $72dollars with a set of collets from Hardinge for $2766 ?
Hardinge makes great 5c collets but you pay for them. I have been a machinist for 70 years and most of the time if parts being made that NEED to be dead concentric you make them out of bigger stock and machine them to size. And if second operation is needed use an expensive collet or bore a soft collet in the lathe. Another option is to buy a set true collet chuck. And dial the collets into how close you need them to run. Some machinist expect collets to run dead true. But sit down and see what it would cost if you made a collet from scratch. Cost of material would probably be more than 2 bucks . Add threading to the od and threading to the Id and heat treating cost and milling the slots.
Click to expand...
 
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