PSA: A shop in Tacoma showed me a different way to check tool runout

I was visiting a buddy's shop last month and saw him use a dial indicator on the tool holder itself, not just the spindle. He had a cheap magnetic base stuck to the machine table and was checking each holder before it went in. He said, 'If the holder's off, the tool will be off, even with a perfect spindle.' I started doing this on our Haas VF2 and found one holder with 0.0008" runout we'd been using for months. Has anyone else had a bad holder sneak through like that?

3 comments

3 Comments

betty_perry2425d ago

Honestly, I've never bothered with that. The time it takes to check every single holder adds up, and in my experience, a decent holder from a known brand just doesn't fail that way. If the spindle is good, I trust the tooling.

harris.andrew25d ago

That trick saved a big job for us once.

-1

amycraig25d ago

Yeah, that trick saved me a ton of time on a deadline last week.