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CDCO Tools, anyone buy from them?

grandtools

Banned
Joined
Oct 1, 2002
Location
Pittsburgh Pa USA
Ive noticed a few people mention CDCO tools here. I looked at their site and prices look pretty good. Has anyone ordered from them? They seem rather high on shipping, they seem to use a fixed shipping price per item, and I put a few items in the cart, 2 small chucks, a collet chuck and small QC toolpost set and the shipping came up as $50.....WOW
 
Yep I made my first order from them about 2-3 weeks ago. I bought about 12 quick change tool holders of three different sizes. I am in illinois and I think the shipping was around 25-30 bucks. What is really bad is that everything I ordered could have went into a flat rate box and shipped for around 11 bucks. The guy has to be figuring on making a few bucks from overcharging on shipping or he figures that is his "handling charge".
The tool holders are ok, the dovetail openings are slightly wider than the standard Aloris and Phase II holders I already have which makes the toolpost handle move around enough you have to be careful.

tim
 
Hello grandtools,

I bought some cxa toolholders from them. Jackalope ( Grant) here was talking about cdco on here and got me interested. A few people here at PM said communicaton was a little rough with the owner. He is Asian and has broken english, well my broken ears make it hard for me to understand anyways. I e-mailed him & asked for the price on 12 toolholders in a flat rate US postal service box. He replied that day. I ordered them and everything looked good whne they got here.

note: On these tolholders the set screws are a little loose fitting. My guess is that way they don't have to retap them after heat treat & they don't warp beyond use during the heat.

If mine get any looser I may try teflon tape, or cross drill some screws and put in a piece of weedeater twine.;)

The man in the e-mails was named "Frank", later I was told that Frank was the asian owner. No problems, so it would probably be best to email them, and use paypal for payment like I did.

JAckal
 
So, did he agree to ship your items in the Flat rate box without extra handling charges? I guess the quality of the stuff is about the same as the phase II stuff. I have some of the Phase II holders with same problem with loose fitting screws. In fact some of the setscrews in mine split. Thanks for your input.
Hello grandtools,

I bought some cxa toolholders from them. Jackalope ( Grant) here was talking about cdco on here and got me interested. A few people here at PM said communicaton was a little rough with the owner. He is Asian and has broken english, well my broken ears make it hard for me to understand anyways. I e-mailed him & asked for the price on 12 toolholders in a flat rate US postal service box. He replied that day. I ordered them and everything looked good whne they got here.

note: On these tolholders the set screws are a little loose fitting. My guess is that way they don't have to retap them after heat treat & they don't warp beyond use during the heat.

If mine get any looser I may try teflon tape, or cross drill some screws and put in a piece of weedeater twine.;)

The man in the e-mails was named "Frank", later I was told that Frank was the asian owner. No problems, so it would probably be best to email them, and use paypal for payment like I did.

JAckal
 
He advertised on ebay an indicator holder as made by Starrett and a picture of same. When I received the indicator it did not look like the picture and was obviously not Starrett. I sent him an email about that and he never responded. I left negative feedback on ebay. There is other negative feedback on him and I think he just doesn't care about it.
 
Never had a problem with cdco. I got a few bxa holders recently. Here is my take on them.

The setscrews are no worse than anyone elses. All of the import setscrews suck. I have boxes of new setscrews so that is not an issue.

The dovetails are a bit loose but that isn't the end of the world. It beats having them too tight like some I have got from Shars.

Talked to the cdco owner on the phone. He called when I typoed my CC number. I can understand him just fine.

Shars is more money but in general Shars' products are higher quality. SHars is a family run business. I have talked to his wife and him a couple of times.
 
Bought a 5" D1-4 blank backplate and a few BXA toolholders. Dovetail is a tad wide, as noted above, and screws need to be replaced, normal for Chinese set screws.
Would order again.

I did screw up and order a D1-3 and it took a bit of effort to return it but all ended well.
 
Cdco

I just bought a readout for a Bridgeport I finished redoing and everything went AOK. Asian guy wasn't to hard to understand, shipped right on time and I got what he said I was getting. I would try him again.

I have also done a lot of business with Shars and they are OK as well as long as your expectations are in line with the $$$ you are paying.

Its not fair to expect a Cadillac for the price of a Geo. :)
 
I bought a few toolholders, a set of carbide insert lathe tools and a HSS parting tool from him. The carbide tools were utter junk, the parting tool as nice as could be, the tool holders good enough for my undemanding use, and a bargain. The screws were awful, and I replaced them all with good ones from a local industrial supply place, for something like 14 cents a screw.
 
CDCO Experience

FYI- CDCO is the same as Total CNC Industrial Supply; they have the same phone number, 800-417-2305 and the same guy answers.
I have purchased a number of items from them and you get what you pay for. Better quality than HF though:)
I think I have placed 4 orders and each order came within 4-5 days and I remember one time when I ordered by phone that an item was not in stock and was told that upfront.
I don't remember the freight charges being very high though.:nutter:
My experience with them is excellent and what is really strange now is that I am beginning to understand the man on the other end of the phone:crazy:
Have a safe day
Gerald
 
After looking at a lot of the different 'brands' of QCTP and stuff I decided that, given CDCO's satisfaction guaranty, I'd place the order with them 'cause their price was lowest. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, eh??

Well, placing the order was painless (on line), the confirmation was fast, etc.

Order arrived very well packed and on time. The QCTP and holders seem to be quite well made and well finished. This is the '100' size.

I took one of the tool holders out into the shop and 'tested' the hardness, with the old Austrian file I've been using for that purpose for about 35 years, and judged the holder to be about Rc38. So far, so good.

Opened the rest of the stuff and it all looks, and fits, just fine!

I haven't messed with the screws yet so I can't comment on that.

Oh, I also ordered that 5 piece set of turning tools. They are very well made also but I'm skeptical of the carbides themselves. They look a bit 'rough' if you will.

Time will tell!!

Pete
 
No, Grand, he didn't charge any extra handling fees. (maybe he forgot)?

He e-mailed me the price of the holders + flat rate box ($12 something I think).

I paid with paypal, in case there was trouble , paypal might help:rolleyes5:.

I will buy from Frank again.

JAckal
 
Shars is close to me and I've been there a couple of times. FWIW, it looks like they have several employees at desks, probably taking phone orders, and and a couple of them were American. Everybody I talked to spoke English well.

Mike
 
I bought two sets of ER-40 collets and collet chucks, one NMTB-40 and one R-8. The -40 set was great, less than .0003 runout three inches from the spindle nose of my horizontal mill.

The R-8 chuck was not so good when installed in my vertical mill, but when I called, the owner had no problem with replacing it provided that I pay one-way shipping - the collets were fine, BTW. (As it turned out, I sawed off the R-8 taper from the collet chuck, which was the problem, and used the collet chuck for another purpose that worked out well.)

I've also purchased a couple of sets of insert holders, both 3/8 and 1/2 and they seem to be fine five years later, despite being a bit soft. In summary, the good stuff was good and the single bad item was (freely) offered to be exchanged, based on a small sample.

I'd give the guy thumbs up.
 
8 year old thread. LOL,

CDCO is OK for most things. The BXA tool holders are on sale there from time to time and work well with my Phase II QC unit. The socket head screws that come with the holders are no good so you will be needing a source for some good ones. I replaces all of mine with ones from McMaster-Carr.

He is about 25% too high on shipping but the prices sort of make the difference.

Forget ever calling him on the phone, He speaks a variety of English that I simply can't understand.

He sells on eBay as "toolprecision" and his shipping is generally slightly lower there for some reason. Also, if you buy on eBay with PayPal you have some protection if things go South.
 








 
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