Beall I-X Collets

[Josh Bowman]

Does anyone own the Beall I-X Collets?

What do you think of them?

What do you use them for?

How well do they hold?

[Montgomery Scott]

Have never heard of them, but I like the innovative thinking. I have a Beall collet chuck that works well. This would make a nice addition to it.

[Marvin Hasenak]

I have made them out of wood if I don't need real accuracy, if I need it to run true I use expanding arbors from Enco and I use my metal lathe to turn the headstock end down to 3/4" to fit my collet chuck. If you use wood, drill and tap the end for pipe plug, they expand the wood ASAP, instead of cutting the end in 4 slots, cut it in 8 they will expand better.

[Peter Blair]

Got a set from the War Department for Christmas this year. Have only used once but it saved me a lot of time and frustration when I could figure no other way to hold a small lid I was making. I like them but I don't expect them to get everyday use.

[Josh Bowman]

Well, we gave in to the vortex and just got our order in from Beall for the IX Collets.
Here's a mini review, since I couldn't find much on them. As said, they are well made and stored in a cherry block. The back part is a 1/2" spigot and not having a collet system, I used a drill chuck. I figured the worse case would be a pine 2x4 square. I thought this would put the most torque on the expanding collet and it being soft, would test the holding power of the collet. I also went at it with a 1/2" bowl gouge aggressively.
Here's the results. The first try, the MT2 spun out of the lathes spindle. Try #2 with a draw bar now securing the the MT2 drill chuck, the drill chuck spin off of the MT2 http://www.woodcentral.com/webbbs/smileys/frown.gif . Try #3 with the drill chuck now banged into the MT2, the chuck jaws spun on the expanding collets spigot http://www.woodcentral.com/webbbs/smileys/ohwell.gif . Now with every thing tightened.......I easily cut the corners off of the 2x4 and was able to take aggressive cuts almost down to the expanding collets hole. The collet never offered to come out of the 2x4's hole, but was easy to release with the included allen wrench. As you can see the system will benefit from a 1/2" collet closing system, but if you tighten a chuck system properly, it will work as well. Now this IS NOT what these are for and there are better holding methods for such aggressive cuts, but as said this was a test.
Overall I'm glad to add these to my arsenal of tools. All that's required is to drill the correct size hole 1/2" deep and tighten the chuck lightly.

[John C Lawson]

I've been tempted by these. Do you think they would give a satisfactory result if one attempted to remount a workpiece?

[Josh Bowman]

I've been tempted by these. Do you think they would give a satisfactory result if one attempted to remount a workpiece?
I don't think re chucking would be a problem. To date my biggest issue is holding the 1/2" spigot. I just got in some Apprentice collets from Woodturners Supply and even though they are made well they don't "choke up" enough on the Beall spigot to hold it as well as I would like it to. Actually the drill chuck does the best so far for holding the Beall collets. So any project that you do regularly that requires or can allow for a hole to be drilled, these could come in handy. Of course these are just a convenience since there are other ways to skin a cat.

[Richard Jones]

I bought the set, but to date have only used one of them to hold salt and pepper shakers. Downside to this is that the bottom of the shaker is not flat, but convex, to allow for clearance for the rubber bung. Therefore, the collet cannot be used its full length. Even so, I have experienced no problems. I use these in a Beall collet chuck that I've had for years.

This has been a lot faster than turning a jam chuck for each shaker. Even with using the same bit for boring the hole, there can be enough variation that one jam chuck won't fit all. Doubtful that I will ever use them all, but it's nice kit.............