Your ER Spindle Collet Nut is OK

I received another bunch of emails from people worried that their ER Spindle nut was incorrectly manufactured. So I figured I'd mention it here.

You can see that there's an eccentric ring inside the nut. This is what throws people off. They insert a collet into the spindle, try and screw the nut on and it won't go on, or throws the collet off axis. Then they look at the nut and assume that the nut is defective as the ring isn't concentric. It does look wrong.

The proper way is to insert the collet into the nut until the eccentric ring snaps into the groove in the collet. This allows the nut to pull the collet out of the spindle when loosening it.

Then the nut is screwed on loosely, then the tooling is inserted into the collet and tightened fully.
Taig started putting a sheet explaining this in with the mills, but not the new 1045ER adapter, and who reads the paperwork anyway?

Drawings of the 1045 ER spindle adapter

Are available on the Taigmachines Weekly Update page, along with some powerfeed timeline information.

BTW, You'll see posts here from Felice, but it's me when I'm too lazy to sign into my other Google account...

Added Some Links, ER16 Collets

I added some links to the Taig pages:

• Matt Shumaker's E-bike project built with his Taig Mills
• "Luke Vader" Flickr Set of his Taig Lathe
• DoubleCAD is free.

I also sorted out the ER16 pricelist to show the three other collet sizes Taig offers.

Fisher Machine Shop, who makes the edgefinders I sell, has their own website now

Now a couple of pics you would have seen if you read my airgun blog.


Recessing a urethane piston seal.

Using the new Kenbo dremel holder to grind the seal to final size. It's so new it's not on his page yet, but you can email him.

Taig 1045ER ER16 to Taig Spindle Adapter

Taig mailed me a new accessory for the lathe, the #1045ER ER16 to 3/4"-16 Taig lathe spindle adapter.

The hexagonal portion threads onto the lathe spindle. The collet is inserted into the nut (snapping into the eccentric ring) and then screwed loosely into the body. Then the tooling or workpiece is inserted into the collet and the collet tightened. You will need two 1" wrenches to use this chuck as well as ER16 collets.

Here it is mounted on one of my two Taig lathes for testing.

I checked runout on the two lathes with several different pins and collets. Runout was between .0005" and .002" depending. While that may seem rather large on the high end there are a lot of little errors that stack up with adapters like this. For much work it's certainly better than the standard collets or chucks.

The long 3/8" double end mill below wouldn't go far enough into the spindle to chuck securely, but you can see a standard 3/8" fits fine. (runout on that endmill was .001")

Using the Adapter to hold steel rod for machining. It grips securely and on this steel rod showed under .001" of runout. This is far more versatile than the standard Taig collets for workholding as the ER16 collet will collapse 1/32" from nominal size so that a wide range of work can be held.

The part number and price:
1045ER $26.95 ER16 Collet Adapter

As with most of the accessories I sell it receives the 10% discount.