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I finally tossed my cheater bar after a talk with a 68 year old toolmaker in Dayton
Last week a retired toolmaker came through the shop and watched me lean on a 4 foot pipe to break a stuck ER32 collet nut loose. He just shook his head and told me he has seen three guys over the years wreck a spindle taper doing exactly that, and the fix took the machine down for two days each time. He pulled a torque wrench out of his box and we checked it, my nut needed about 60 ft lbs but I was probably hitting 200 with the pipe. My lead is ordering a proper collet wrench set Monday. Anybody else catch themselves reaching for the pipe without thinking?
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the_pat15d ago
That 60 ft lb number is where I have to push back a little. On an ER32 nut the maker's spec is usually more like 70 to 80 ft lbs for full grip, and a lot of guys run them lower than that and wonder why the collet spins. The real problem with your pipe is not so much that the nut needed 60, it is that a 4 foot pipe turns any normal pull into a guessing game, since where you grab the pipe changes the math. Dayton guy was right about the taper though, side load on the nut is what kills the spindle nose, not the torque itself. Good call on the proper wrench set, just check the spec stamped on the nut before you set the wrench.
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