W&S collet pad jaws

[gixxergary]

Since I recieved such excellent responses to my other post, I thought I would ask you folks about the Collet Pad Jaws.
The jaws seem pricey at 145 ea, but the pads are around 35 a set, which would be very economical for our small shop. Is this item worth the money? Due they run true, or do they need to be skin cut when using? Are they hard or soft? These may seem like silly questions, but research is coming up blank on this. Most of our work, is 2 inches or less in diameter, and this seems like a real time saver.
What are your thoughts???

Thanks,
Gary

[paul gibson]

Gary,

The collet pads are ideal for a lot of applications. You can get them in smooth or serrated faces. The serrated are good when your needing a heavy cut, keeps the material from pushing back. Not wanting to kill a sale for W/S, but we used to buy the pads and make our own Master jaws for them. W/S also sold soft pads you could bore to suit your needs. They will repeat fairly true when re-used, if they don't you can shim them to achieve good TIR. The hard pads are not really designed for re-skimming. Our experience with the shop made Master jaws was that depending on usage, we would re-bore them ...yearly.. But our needs for them were mainly for bar-stock jobs that would have material removed from the raw stock, therefore concentricity was not an issue. My experience, w/ good master jaws, and collet pads, you could expect .002/.005 runout with the pads. Close enough for a lot of shop work, and yes they are quick and easy for change overs.


Paul