[john whidden]

Are there other options for collet closers other than the Royal? I think I'd most like to have an air chuck that is all front mount with no draw tube. Does anyone still make anything like this?

Plan is for bar puller operation. Any suggestions are appreciated.

[Geof]

Make your own

http://www.cnczone.com/forums/showthread.php?t=38031

The most recent front mount non draw tube chuck I saw was about 11 years ago at Westec, bigger than would fit on a TL and at a price a little bit more than a TL if I remember correctly

[Donkey Hotey]

Yup, I just went through this. The Royal air closer is the only option. I gathered from here that if you want through-spindle access, you bore out the back plate on the closer.

I think it was suggested that it was some new OSHA requirement to not have that end exposed and rotating or some nonsense. So they sell it closed now and it's 'wink-wink, nudge-nudge' if you want to bore it out and take the responsibility of disabling that 'safety feature'.

[AMCTony]

I have a front mount Pnumatic from Atlas tool. Check www.workholding.com as this is where I got mine. Everything is on the front with no draw tube crap. It also has full thru bar capability. I just used it on a 5000pc order on my TL-2 with gang tooling. Works really good. It was a bit expensive ($3100) but worth every penny in the time it has saved me. I have the 5C size which will allow me to bar feed 1" round.

[Donkey Hotey]

If I was going to spend that much coin, I'd take a long look at 3J or 16C collet families for the increased diameter (especially with the full diameter of the spindle being available). I went with 5C because the available used stuff was inexpensive but I really wanted the larger workholding.

Just being able to feed 1.5" round or even 1" hex would be great compared to the 1" round in a 5C.

[AMCTony]

A MAJOR consideration in the spending the amount of coin that I did was weather or not the chuck was a zero length set like this one is. The parts that I was and usually run need to be chucked +-0.001 or better on the length and any pull back in a normal collet closer will not work at all. I was considering a 3J but the pull back issue was a big problem otherwise I would have one of those. I will say that when they say zero length set on one of those closers they mean it. If the chucking tolerance on the length is not an issue then there are obviously much more inexpensive choices out there.

[Donkey Hotey]

I wasn't disagreeing with you and I agree on 'dead length' style closers. I was just saying that if I went that far up in the price range, I'd spend the extra to go with the bigger collets as well.

Edit: upon looking at that site again, it looks like they do have a 'small body' 3J closer, in the dead-length variety with the proper A2-5 spindle mount. Oooh, how I wish I could justify one of those right now.