Originally Posted by
mmurray70
We might be a little off the origional topic here with tooling, but Id share my experience with cheap tooling... I just started up a small shop and couldn't afford to buy new tooling so i was forced with used e-bay toolholders or new chinese ones. I bought a few chinese cat40 holders and they are completely garbage. None of them are hardened, at all. One of the ones i bought had over 0.025" runout on the pullstud! Another was an odd sized facemill holder that i couldnt find used, looked good at first glance but as soon as i tightened the screw the threads stripped immediately. Turns out the tapped hole was drilled like 0.040" oversize. Probably had some 5 year old kid sharpening drills off center. And finally the last one i had was a nice long skinny tapered ER16 holder for reaching into cavities. This one had no problems but they sent me the wrong holder! Ended up getting a long tool with huge 2" dia body all the way to the end and a tiny ER16 nut?? WTF?! Why would anybody even make a tool like this? Also all the chinese ER holders have garbage nuts, completely garbage soft steel junk.
After learning my lesson here i started looking at used name brand tooling off e-bay and got lots of good holders now. There are tons of good used quality holders on e-bay, just be patient and pick through them. You will have much better luck with used then chinese trust me.
Also im not just bashing china. I do give them credit on some things that are made decent. I have a bunch of chinese lathe tools that are ok, and even lathe inserts. Their ER collets are maybe 75% ok and are ridiculously cheap. I bought a bunch and just tossed the ones with runout. I do have a couple of Glacern cat40 holders that i think might be chinese? Not 100% sure. But these are nice. And I have a shars integrated cat40 drill chuck thats decent too. But do yourself a favor and avoid the no name brand stuff from china in terms of Cat40 holders.