"Cheap" Tool Holders

Grenade · Jan 10, 2020

I fully expect to get roasted for asking this, but what has everyone's experience been with "cheap Chinese" tool holders?

I have a Sharp TMV-1 CNC knee mill I'm about to buy tool holders for. It has a 5000 RPM NMTB40 spindle. I plan on getting a longer drawbar so I can use CAT40 holders. This is a garage/hobby machine and I'm never expecting to run large scale production.

I would never consider using these holders in a VMC with a high RPM spindle, but are they sufficient for my application? I'll pay the premium for high quality tool holders if necessary, but am obviously looking to save money where I can.

CAT40 ER16 70mm 2.76" Collet Chuck Tool Holder Balanced G2.5 20000RPM New | eBay

Thanks!

HuFlungDung · Jan 10, 2020

Buy a few and try them out, it is not a major gamble to take. The main issue I've had with some Chinese made tooling is the thread quality: they can sometimes be cut extremely loose, as though they used the most oversize tap they could find to make sure the bolt will screw in after heat treating. Presumably, anybody who is going to manufacture tooling to make their money is going to have enough sense to make it the correct shape. But the heat treatment is something we can only guess at the quality thereof.

Make sure that you click assemble the collets into the nut properly before you put the tool shank in. Otherwise you'll think you got bummed out tooling.

red beard · Jan 10, 2020

Several years ago I bought a couple of cheap CAT40 holders on ebay. One of them seemed to be fine. The other one wouldn't even fit all of the way into the spindle. The taper near the flange measured way oversize (over 1/16" IIRC). If something that bad got past their QC then they have no QC. Who knows what else might be wrong with them. It wasn't worth messing up my spindles to save a few bucks.

Now I buy most of my toolholders from MariTool. The prices are pretty reasonable there, and they are very high quality. But if you're looking to save money, Shars toolholders seem to be OK. I have a few of them, and I haven't seen any issues with them. I would definitely take them over no-name Chinese ebay holders. It looks like right now you can get four ER16 collet chucks for $200 which isn't that much more than the ebay holders.

Ianagos · Jan 10, 2020

"Cheap" Tool Holders

Look up tpac tools on eBay. They sell er16 and er32 (the other stuff may not be good)I don’t feel like giving my whole spiel but they are good. .0002” which on any mill with a nmtb40 spindle will probably be better then you ever need. Shars Taiwan made endmill holders are also not bad but kinda pricey I would rather get maritool. Most of what I run is er collets as most small Tools don’t come with Weldon flats anymore and I can’t afford the high end clamping systems.

If you buy the no name stuff good luck. Who knows what they are made of. But you could always use bt40 aswell. Even cheaper I think.

pianoman8t8 · Jan 10, 2020

I've bought a few of those cheap ones on Ebay as well, in CAT40. My only complaint is the runout of the collets, which is of no surprise. These were bought to get me going on some open-tolerance work. As they get replaced from now on, they'll be replaced with halfway decent stuff. Whatever that is...

Cole2534 · Jan 10, 2020

Ianagos said:
Look up tpac tools on eBay. They sell er16 and er32 ....

$35 w/ pull stud, Mazak or Haas design.

Mtndew · Jan 10, 2020

Grenade said:
but what has everyone's experience been with "cheap Chinese" tool holders?

My experience was if you paid for shit, you got shit.
You don't need to buy uber-expensive holders,but I definitely would never buy the ones you linked.
Your holder is a crucial element of how your cutter performs, why sacrifice runout or rigidity just because it was a few dollars cheaper than a decent mid range holder?

A Mari-Tool Cat 40 holder ER-16 will cost you a Ben Franklin and you're not rolling the dice on whether or not it's a pile of shit.

Just ask yourself is $70 worth chancing a spindle repair? :nono:

D.D.Machine · Jan 10, 2020

I have about 100+ cat40 shars holders in the shop and every one has been great,, I "ONLY" buy there balanced holders so I cant speech about there cheaper holders .

I tried there er32 and er16 collets and found I like the techniks collets a lot better and well only use Techniks and T.J.Davies or techniks pull studs ..

e30ryan · Jan 10, 2020

Most of my ER 16/32 holders are "cheap" ones from Ebay (TPAC, etc) or Shars. I check runout of every one of them after purchasing and they are usually less than 0.0003" runout. There have been a few which are worse (some up to 0.001"), but I will reserve those for less critical operations (drilling/tapping/etc).

toolsteel · Jan 10, 2020

We bought some cheap holders........in a nutshell.....they will post runout numbers in their ads that they dont actually achieve. We also found some that the dimensions of the taper was not ground correctly. Got rid of them before any noticeable spindle damage. I dont have a specific holder i would reccommend for you, but i would stay away from the bottom feeders. We use alot of Schunk and Sandvik .....but those are much more expensive than what you are looking for.

Delw · Jan 10, 2020

Mtndew said:
My experience was if you paid for shit, you got shit.
You don't need to buy uber-expensive holders,but I definitely would never buy the ones you linked.
Your holder is a crucial element of how your cutter performs, why sacrifice runout or rigidity just because it was a few dollars cheaper than a decent mid range holder?

A Mari-Tool Cat 40 holder ER-16 will cost you a Ben Franklin and you're not rolling the dice on whether or not it's a pile of shit.

Just ask yourself is $70 worth chancing a spindle repair?

Exactly
I have about 100 holders, putting new spindles in 2 machines here in the next month or so. I'm going to buy all new holders just cause I don't want the used ones pounding the new spindle bores. I called maritool to see what he thought he said good idea but check my old ones real good 1st.
thought about getting the tool holders reground but it would be almost the cost of new ones.
most of these holders are 15 years old in a old fadal that doesnt have a perfect bore. all are good high end holders. some show no signs of wear/marks on the tapers so they are probably good.
have to blue them up and check I guess

D Nelson · Jan 10, 2020

You can buy er16 25 32 for 17.00 each from CME tools Michigan they work fine no problems here collets 5 bucks each draw bars 4 bucks each
Don

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D.D.Machine · Jan 10, 2020

Delw said:
Exactly
I have about 100 holders, putting new spindles in 2 machines here in the next month or so. I'm going to buy all new holders just cause I don't want the used ones pounding the new spindle bores. I called maritool to see what he thought he said good idea but check my old ones real good 1st.
thought about getting the tool holders reground but it would be almost the cost of new ones.
most of these holders are 15 years old in a old fadal that doesnt have a perfect bore. all are good high end holders. some show no signs of wear/marks on the tapers so they are probably good.
have to blue them up and check I guess

I also had a lot left over from Fadal days ,, most were Collis and non were Balanced at all ... I put a collis er32 "UN"balanced holder in the Haas and at 12K you could tell 20 feet away.. From what I have seen the China junk today is better than the older US stuff.

I have a HUGE mix of techniks , Mari and balanced shars and all have been vary nice .. I just got in 20 ER16 Shars holders at the end of the year and tested a hand full and all were under .0002 runout ... Close enough for drill tap work.

My VF4SS spends most of its life spinning 12K and after 5 years the spindle sounds just the same as the day I got it ..

countryboy1966 · Jan 10, 2020

I have them and use them in one of my machines. With that said, I have been reluctant to use them in my more expensive machine and if I do, I'm not trusting they are balanced. Maybe I'll use them for tap holders.

mhajicek · Jan 10, 2020

My worst fear would be the taper angle being off and damaging the spindle taper.

machtek7 · Jan 10, 2020

I bought a few and the runout was good but they were very soft.

mmurray70 · Jan 10, 2020

When I tooled up a few years ago I bought some new chinese holders and some used brand name holders. Buying used brand name tooling turned out to be a WAY better deal. Many of the chinese holders have run out. One face mill holder I bought had the center hole drilled like 40 thou over, leaving like 20% thread left. Several of the pull stud threads had a ton of runout, definitely check pull stud run out on all cheap holders before using. None of them were hardened worth a dam. I bought some awesome looking tapered shank ER16 holders and they came in a completely different shape then advertised. I certainly wouldnt worry about them damaging the spindle, they are not hard enough to do damage. Stick with used brand name tooling. Especially if your in the US. Im from Canada and its actually cheaper for us to get stuff from china most times. shipping within US is usally cheap or free and there is a ton of tooling on ebay etc if you look through it.

Chinese ER collets are ridiculously cheap. If you have more time then money buy a bunch (maybe from different sellers) and test them for TIR in a decent tool holder. I had to toss about 1/3 of the ones I bought. But in the end I have a bunch of usable ones now for next to nothing.

I wouldnt mess with chinese or unknown used pull studs on any machine. This is one area you need to suck it up and buy new.

MattiJ · Jan 11, 2020

Ianagos said:
Look up tpac tools on eBay. They sell er16 and er32 (the other stuff may not be good)I don’t feel like giving my whole spiel but they are good. .0002” which on any mill with a nmtb40 spindle will probably be better then you ever need. Shars Taiwan made endmill holders are also not bad but kinda pricey I would rather get maritool. Most of what I run is er collets as most small Tools don’t come with Weldon flats anymore and I can’t afford the high end clamping systems.

If you buy the no name stuff good luck. Who knows what they are made of. But you could always use bt40 aswell. Even cheaper I think.

tpac tools looked like good hint. Any experience with their ER collets?

In general if you go for cheap chinese tooling at least buy from seller that is specialized in tooling. In my experience there is a bit better change that they know what they are selling. OP's link was to some ebay seller that sells all kinds of chinese junk from flower pots to motorcycle tuning parts.

There is Chinese tools and whole nother level of Chinese tools: Something like Shars (or mentioned tpac) vs. random ebay sellers that sell everything from flower pots to womens lingerie.

Ianagos · Jan 11, 2020

MattiJ said:
tpac tools looked like good hint. Any experience with their ER collets?

In general if you go for cheap chinese tooling at least buy from seller that is specialized in tooling. In my experience there is a bit better change that they know what they are selling. OP's link was to some ebay seller that sells all kinds of chinese junk from flower pots to motorcycle tuning parts.

There is Chinese tools and whole nother level of Chinese tools: Something like Shars (or mentioned tpac) vs. random ebay sellers that sell everything from flower pots to womens lingerie.

I do not use their collets or pull studs. I only buy their holders. I use techniks collets and cme tools from ebay (I have received bad ones from them). Typically use shars pullstuds. Seem to be quality and non coolant through.

SteveEx30 · Jan 11, 2020

I re-tooled both my VMC machines 4 years ago with cheap Cat40 tooling. All collet holders. I've been very happy with them. Infact no complaints at all. I cut soft material and graphite, so keep that in mind.

I will say I would never consider cheap shrink tooling, I've had bad experiences with that.

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