I need CAT 40 tooling, any suggestions?

[Grimm Reaper Racing]

I'm looking for some CAT 40 tooling for the new CNC mill.  Any brands I should steer towards or away from.

Lyndex - Nikken
Collis
Command
Kennametal
Sandvik
Devlieg
Bison
Clarkson

Just to name a few...

Some help from all of you machinists would be great.

[fabr]

Killer deals on e-bay. I bought some very nice cat40 collet tool holders recently.  Same exact holders from my local guy were 100% higher.

[fastcorvairs]

I'm looking for some CAT 40 tooling for the new CNC mill.  Any brands I should steer towards or away from.

Lyndex - Nikken
Collis
Command
Kennametal
Sandvik
Devlieg
Bison
Clarkson

Just to name a few...

Some help from all of you machinists would be great.

            All the above are good.  Some are very pricey. I have used a brand called Fitz-Rite.  The average cost for a 40 taper is about $45.00 to $60.00.  Some of my tool holders are going on fifteen years old and still are as good as the day I bought them.  I have yet to wear out one.  My oldest machine is a 2006 shows more then  750,000 tool changes using Fitz-Rite tools.

[BDKW1]

I've really good luck with the Valanite holders and tools in the past. They also make some really good shell mills and insert cutters for heavy stock removal.

[Doug Heim]

Are you sure you need CAT 40? NMTB 40 may save you a little cash. The CAT 40 is best for when your using an auto tool changer. Master is right, Many good deals on Ebay right now! I am tooling mine up as well as the "stay behind" one at the shop.

[Engineer]

Auctions are your friend!  Unfortunately the timing usually sucks.  I have used many of the brands and never had a specific problem with any.

One thing I would stear away from are the collet holders that use a snap ring to unseat the collet.  When I first bought my machine in ~95 I bought a bunch of Command 32 size collet stuff.  It had the snap rings and if you leave a tool in for to long or it just gets super wedged in then it will break the snap ring when you unscrew the cap.  No biggie, remove the pull stud and tap the collet out, then put a new snap ring in the cap.  Problem is they are a couple bucks apiece for the snap rings.  The newer ones have a solid eccentric shoulder that allows the collet to go in offset, but once in place will center up.  Most people act like I am nutz when I want to verify the tools don't use snap rings, so they may not have been very common.

BTW, I don't know about the pros, but I run endmills and almost everything in the collets.  You can easily adjust for the reach you need and they seem to be just as solid as endmill holders while giving flexibility.  1" and above and inserted tools I usually run in the endmill holders.  Just my $.02.

[Doug Heim]

And it is a good $.02. I agree 

[BDKW1]

Had the same problem on the ER32 collets. Anybody ever use the shrinker EM holders?

[fabr]

No but I hear they are a bitch to set up and retool.

[Grimm Reaper Racing]

Thanks fellas,

     I ordered a few hundred dollars worth of Collis holders as they are made right here in Iowa.  I hope to have the machine making some shiny buggy parts later this week.

[Grimm Reaper Racing]

Well the tooling showed up yesterday, too bad the damn machine was doing some funny crap.  My Z-axis was slowly moving up all by itself.

I pulled the encoder cable, still creeping up.  So I switched the X-axis card with the  Z-axis card.  Still the Z-axis was creeping up...

Then after a bunch of DOS programming, and changing of some settings that had been erased by the previous owner's machinist.  I finally managed to get it working last night about 9:00 p.m.  What a freaking conundrum that was.  Oh well, I now know more about the inner workings of that damn machine than I cared too.

Thanks again for all of your suggestions fellas.

[Engineer]

Well the tooling showed up yesterday, too bad the damn machine was doing some funny crap.  My Z-axis was slowly moving up all by itself.

I pulled the encoder cable, still creeping up.  So I switched the X-axis card with the  Z-axis card.  Still the Z-axis was creeping up...

Then after a bunch of DOS programming, and changing of some settings that had been erased by the previous owner's machinist.  I finally managed to get it working last night about 9:00 p.m.  What a freaking conundrum that was.  Oh well, I now know more about the inner workings of that damn machine than I cared too.

Thanks again for all of your suggestions fellas.

Good job on figuring it out!  It's always a pain when something acts up, but knowing the machine pays off in the long run.  If/WHEN more problems arise. 

[Doug Heim]

Sorry I didnt get back to you on the problems, I still would not have an answer for you  :-[

[lupus1]

If you need the tool holders, I have a friend that owns a shop and they have made some. I don't know that much about it but it seems to work for them.

http://cmistore.clarklakemachine.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=3&zenid=06d7864663e5a1edc80f20be823a3b8c

Just tell them Mike Courtney sent you.

[lupus1]

I guess it is only for the Haas VF series. Sorry