Collet Identification Please?

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

These little collets superficially resemble ER ones but look of proportionally shorter taper; and their chuck nut engages a simple rebate rather than uses a ring and groove. This chuck is missing.

They range from 1/8″ to 5/16″ by 1/32″ increments, work diameter. The set includes an unfinished collet too: un-drilled and un-slotted. The peg on the (owner-made?) wooden storage block likely held the chuck.

I have only just noticed that oddly, the 5/16″ capacity specimen collet I measured for the drawing below, does not have a full-diameter through-hole, just a tiny pilot hole. All of its brothers are full-bore through.

 

The photograph includes perhaps a drawbar for their, or a, small chuck in a lathe like the ‘Peatol’ they came with – but I no longer have that lathe and the collets bear no names or numbers. The sleeve on the end of the drawbar is a cylindrical nut with a slot for a screwdriver. Though not certain the nose thread seems 3/8″ X 24tpi UNF by thread-gauge. It also fitted a couple of spare Jacobs Chucks, smoothly.

(I don’t know why these items, and a backplate, did not go to the lathe’s new owner, other than doubt over correlation.)

 

What might they be, please?

Home-made, even?

 

I am unable to photograph anything so tiny as an individual collet, so measured one as best I could and produced a quick, slightly inaccurate drawing. The plotted slots are too wide, for a start, but it shows the general shape.

Overall length 14.5mm, maximum diameter 13.4mm (unclamped). The ‘Alibre’ model shows nominal 6mm capacity.

 

[Peter Cook 6Participant @petercook6]

Look like a set of Taig Collets.

[southernchapParticipant @southernchap]

Ki da looks like one of the Crawford collet designs.

There’s this site that might help identification.  I think the company isn’t the original Crawford but a third party that has started up to supply collets for Crawford chucks/closers:

Home

[Nigel Graham 2]

On 10 September 2026 at 22:55 Nigel Graham 2 Said:

This chuck is missing.

The set includes an unfinished collet too: un-drilled and un-slotted.

The photograph includes perhaps a drawbar for their, or a, small chuck in a lathe like the ‘Peatol’ they came with

As above, everything is Taig/Peatol.

The closing nut screws onto the Taig spindle and the collet seats in the spindle taper, so no separate chuck.

They did indeed make a blank collet.

The threaded arbor is to hold a Jacobs chuck.

You might find the Peatol site on the Internet Archive. If not, there was another comprehensive Taig resource by Nick Carter.

https://www.soigeneris.com/taig-lathe-collet-set-1040

https://www.cartertools.com/specific.html

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Just for completeness …. That general style of collet is known  as ‘Dead Length’

MichaelG.

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

That general style of collet is known  as ‘Dead Length’

For me, ‘dead length’ points more towards a mode of operation rather than how the item looks.

While the Taig item has the same shape, it does not operate in a dead length manner. It is pushed into the spindle taper by the closing nut the same as a Myford or ER collet.

AIUI, in a dead length system, the cap is fixed in space (so the front face of the collet is similarly fixed in space) and the taper moves forward over the collet. The stock being gripped would tend to move towards the tailstock with this arrangement, and a stop, perhaps in a tailstock turret, assures length repetition.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Thank you everyone.

I think Rotagrip is the UK agent for Peatol now.

I’ll see if I can sell them.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Touché DC31k … you are right, of course

and you may be pleased to know that GoogleAI has apparently learned from you !

Ask the question, and then check its cited references !

MichaelG.

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Q: are taig collets ‘dead length’

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