Swiss-type Collets

Hardinge provides gripping solutions for machining small-diameter parts for medical component manufacturing. One category of products includes Swiss-type headstock collets, pickoff collets, carbide guide bushings, bar loader collets and custom manufactured solutions for Swiss turning.

Its Swiss-type collets are finish ground to provide a smooth, concentric gripping area (order hole) for the bar stock or work piece and are inspected on a Hardinge SUPER-PRECISION (.000015" TIR) headstock to assure strict concentricity standards. Hardinge stocks headstock collets, pickoff collets and guide bushings in many styles and sizes.

The standard round guide bushings are carbide-lined to keep the stock clean and unmarked. Hardened steel or Meehanite-lined bushings can be made for certain stock that is not compatible with carbide. Standard extended-nose headstock and emergency collets feature added length (straight or tapered) for doing pickoff work or to compensate for tooling interference. Emergency collets can be machined to the desired bore size right in your shop to accommodate small runs or get you by in a pinch while they ship your desired size collet.

Keeping bar stock unmarked, holding a small diameter on center, holding a thin-wall part, ejecting parts and working with extruded bar shapes are common gripping dilemmas for the Swiss-turning industry. Hardinge has manufactured solutions for all of these problems. They provide special accuracy order holes of .0005" or better for holding strict tolerances, as well as micro-inch finish order holes. They manufacture collets and guide bushings for D-shaped and other extruded shapes, along with pickoff collets with a built-in spring ejector that pushes the part into a basket or conveyor to automate the process.

Hardinge has engineered pickoff collets for Citizen, Star, Tornos, Tsugami and other Swiss-type machine applications. Other special Swiss-application collets include stepped, tapered, chamfered, radius and off-center order holes, and over-the-shoulder collets. Additional gripping dilemmas such as short gripping, non-marking, slippery materials, push back, tool clearance, multi-pass machining, large diameters and matched keyways are not a problem for Hardinge.