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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?
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betty_perry246mo 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.
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zara_sanchez3mo ago
Add me to the list of people who learned this the hard way. @betty_perry24 I used to think the same thing until I found a brand new holder in a sealed package that had 0.001" runout right out of the box. Now I feel like a detective checking every tool before it goes in, but I'd rather be that than the guy who ruined a part because I was too lazy. My wife says I'm paranoid about my machines, but I tell her I'm just being careful with expensive metal.
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