Which collet?

[Parson]

I have closed end mandrels for the Jr. Gents and Baron/Sedona kits, which I want to use with a collet chuck.

I also want to make bottle stoppers in the future.

Can someone tell me which collet I should buy and more importantly, what size inserts I need for holding these gizmos?

It's all kind of confusing to me.

 

[PenMan1]

I bought the Beall System. It is 1X8, which means it threads directly into my Jet Mini Lathe without goofy adapters that sometimes don't spin true. It came with 1/4, 3/8, 1/2, 5/8 and 3/4 collets. It is appreciably more expensive than the PSI chuck, but Beall also has all of the collets in 1/16 inch increments. I heard confilcting information about the Beall collets fitting into the PSI system. So to make sure I had a working system that could handle all my needs, I just bought the Beall. The folks at Beall are also a pleasure to work with.

I use the 3/8 and 3/4 collets more than the rest, but I have used all 10 of the collets at one time or another. Sometimes, I'll just poke a mandrel into the 1/4 collet and turn a quick pen on the mandrel. For me that is quicker (and almost turns as true) as setting up the TBC rig.

My closed end mandrels fit precisely into the 3/8 collet. Most of my round blanks fit very snugly into the 3/4 collet. A 3/8 (18 pitch, I think) bolt with the head lopped off fits into the collet and does a nice job with bottle stoppers.
I hope this helps.

 

[ldb2000]

I bought the PSI set on Amazon . It cost $75 with free shipping and came with the 5 major sizes that Andy has and a case , then I bought the filler sizes on ebay for $10 each shipped . I only needed 4 other sizes , I never use anything smaller then the 1/4" . The total cost was still less then the Beall with just the 5 major collets .
The other nice thing about the PSI set is the collet chuck it self is knurled so you don't need wrenches to use it , it comes with a set of tommy bars but I almost never use them .
Almost forgot , the PSI and the Beall are ER32 type collets , which is a standard size , the Woodcraft collet set is not .

 

[zig613]

I purchased the Beall collet chuck from Lee Valley Tools and a 21 metric set of collects from 800Wat on e-Bay. Both are excellent quality and in total were cheaper than small sets sold by Beall or Lee Valley.

 

[tool-man]

Ditto, PSI set per Butch above.

Also on eBay, seller 800watt sells ER32 collet sets for about $60, containing 18 collets from 3 - 20mm. Every possible diameter work piece in that range could be held by one of the collets.

 

[its_virgil]

The collets are the inserts. The chuck holds them. ER32 collets are industry standard collets for the metal lathe users. JR Beall just made a chuck to hold the collets for use on the wood lathe. I have the full set of 18 collets and have used each one of them. Buy the chuck and get the collets from someone on ebay. 800watt has good prices, is slow to ship at times but I've not ever heard of anyone not getting their merchandise from him.

I thought I had a bunch of bent mandrels until I bought the Beall collet chuck and found out my mandrels were not bent after all. No new mandrels for me since I bought the Beall cololet chuck.

Do a good turn daily!
Don

I have closed end mandrels for the Jr. Gents and Baron/Sedona kits, which I want to use with a collet chuck.

I also want to make bottle stoppers in the future.

Can someone tell me which collet I should buy and more importantly, what size inserts I need for holding these gizmos?

It's all kind of confusing to me.