[ianagos]

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.

Yea some guys over at practical machinist have had decent luck with the seller i listed (tpac tools) and yea you must have had some bad luck. I like eBay because if I got trash like that I’d be returning it or getting my money back. (There are some tricks to eBay like don’t buy from the random Chinese that sell beauty products deep fryers and cat40 holders) Like I said don’t purchase the super cheap stuff and be ready to test. The used prices on eBay are ridiculous (read absolute ripoff). I bought new toolmex endmill holders (I think Chinese) for $25 each and technics (not Chinese I believe) where about $60 each but not for everything. While used on eBay either looks completely worn and gone or costs as much as a new one. Also shars pullstuds I like very much they have a little surface above the threads to line up into the counterbore. I don’t mess with the cheap and prevalent Chinese coolant through studs that’s just asking for trouble. The Chinese I bought are very well made in my opinion and I have at least 30 Erickson kennametal and other USA brand holders for tg100 and tg75 including floating tap holders and endmill holders (but In nmtb40) and I’d say the Chinese cat stuff comes very close. Honestly the cat holders have better runout then the kennametal but I attribute some of that to the face that the kennametal are use and tested in my older machine. Also glacerns is ridiculous to me. Their vise I was looking at costs more than a Kurt for a Chinese made thing and it looks like a kurt copy. Idk how they sell that.

Would also like to mention the Erickson holders are not hardened or not very much if they are. I have no clue on the cat holders and I can’t check right now.

If I remember I’ll put them on the Rockwell tester and see now you got me curious. I won’t be home for about 40 days though. If you want to discuss more feel free to pm me I’ll send you my email or number. I’d love to talk and I don’t do much being in the military.


Saying all this I’m a huge fan of American machines and all my large machines are American or Canadian made. But I can’t afford American tooling right now (government doesn’t pay much) só Chinese it is.


Sorry to throw this way off topic