Hi I bought a kress router with a 3mm collet and a 1/4" collet the and am delighted at the quality and the low noise level. My problem is I have trouble removing the cutter from the collet and the collet it's self when I slacken the locking nut. Have ended up with a pair of pipe grips and a lot of cursing to get them out. Does any one else have this problem or is it just me?

Hi,

Be sure to engage the collet into the nut correctly before fitting the nut to the spindle. The collet should click into place and be held by the nut. This must be done before fitting a cutter into the collet. The nut will pull the collet from the spindle taper as you loosen the nut and the cutter should just slip out without force.

John

the collet is held in the nut with a spring clip - to get the collet out of the nut I used to tap it out with a copper drift - I now have a nut per collet so I don't need to do this.

To get the bit out of the collet you need to loosen twice - once to loosen the nut from the spindle then keep turning (it tightens up again a tad) until it pulls the collet from the taper - then the bit should drop out no problem.

Thank you both for your input, Have just been to the workshop and tried both my collest in the nut and they both work a treat. Seams the only thing missing was the click in the nut, that simple, or perhaps the only thing that was simple was me!
Thank you both again.

Hi, I have a slightly different problem. The collet did click into the nut OK and so extracted easily from the spindle but now I can't separate the collet from the nut:confused:

Here's a link that shows how you remove the collet from the nut.

http://members.tele2.nl/j.w.schoonen/

The text is in dutch but the pictures are very clear.

Our new stock (1050, 800, 800 110V): The Kress collet nut has been redesigned....the "C" shaped snap / retaining ring has been removed from the Clamping Nut.....the internal machining has a very small raised profile, collets can be removed using light fingure pressure (www.worldofcnc.com)
NB: Kress Stock, Spare Collet nuts have the retaining ring..

Our new stock (1050, 800, 800 110V): The Kress collet nut has been redesigned....the "C" shaped snap / retaining ring has been removed from the Clamping Nut.....the internal machining has a very small raised profile, collets can be removed using light fingure pressure (www.worldofcnc.com)
NB: Kress Stock, Spare Collet nuts have the retaining ring..

Please also note, the new design clamping nut has a smaller thro' bore, now 8.4mm (was 10.5mm)