Are there plans to add a collet set to the Colchester lathe? I do a lot of small work and a three jaw chuck is not really suitable. I measured 3 mils of runout the other day.
No. Not that I object to getting a collet chuck. But how would it help if there’s runout in the lathe?
Something like THIS work for ya?
I don’t know anything about collet sets except that when I looked for an original 5c setup for our lathe they were
scarce and expensive.
Runout is a precision ground rod in 3 jaw chuck. I didn’t remove the chuck to check the lathe spindle. I did some searching, and everything for that lathe is very expensive.
Yes, something like this converter would work. But if the 3 jaw chuck isn’t holding the work centered, as appears to be the case, then this type of collet holder will not improve the situation. Thanks for the idea! 
I think I remember Chuck and I doing an informal test on the outside of the chuck and getting 1/2 a thou
even with all the surface imperfections. I went back and got Paul Lucas’s report from the old list,
perhaps it will illuminate some issues. I wouldn’t rule out jaw member damage at this point either.
"Good news: I cut a test piece on the lathe to check alignment of the lathe’s headstock to the bed per the user manual and without adjustments, and based on my limited knowledge, it appears the lathe will turn true within 1/10,000 of an inch over a distance of 6 inches without adjustment (may be better but this was good enough for my pieces). This test will need to be repeated if the lathe is moved though, but is not too difficult to do.
Sorta bad news: I was trying to turn some accurate parallel bars and getting a poor finish. While debugging this issues, I noticed the cut would be significantly affected if I pushed on the lathe’s saddle. This should be corrected by adjusting the gibs, which I had done, but for now they are probably too tight. I will work on the gib adjustment either Monday night or Tuesday so that it doesn’t wobble but can still be easily moved with the hand wheels.
Paul"