European (or american that ships int'l) suppliers of ER 25 parts

[henrik_o]

We're looking to buy a set of metric ER 25 parts for our Colombo.

I must admit I'm not entirely sure of the English terms; the collet is the part that inserts into the nut and applies the clamping pressure to the bit as the nut is tightened, right? Or no?

Anyway, since European 'botters must have come across this need for parts, I thought I'd ask here before continuing calling around (no success thus far).

[rhfurniture]

There must be loads of places round Sweden - try Moretens, they make CNC machines. I am just starting on the same path and will try this:
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/signconsumables
They say they are decent swiss made collets, and are twice the price of the cheap engineering ones, which I assume are made in China.
R.

[henrik_o]

Ralph,

I'm sure there's many, I just can't seem to find them. A big problem is that for woodworking, cnc in Sweden apparently means (tool changing) HSK specs, my normal suppliers (who can find odd parts for 50 years old machines) are so far stumped.

I will definetly try Moretens -- hadn't thought about them. Funny that you mention Moreten cnc's, that's their new line of low cost machines coming out you're referring to, right?


/Begin rant

Overall, I'm quite happy to purchase outside of Sweden, as long as it's in the Union. Swedish importers generally lash on a huge margin, often resulting in twice the price of what you'll find in Germany or the UK. If they at least keep an inventory of it and can have it at my door next day, fine, I'll be grumpy about it but I'll pay.

However, it is not only worse than that, it is often two orders worse the experience. Yes, not only do they put on a 150-200% or so markup when they feel like it, they also sit on my order until there's enough orders for them to take home a shipment at maximum discount (for them, of course).

For example, if I want to order Awuko abrasives, which IMHO are superior to everything I've tried, the 'normal' way is to call my supplier, place my order, then wait for oh I don't know, four weeks or something until they have enough orders to bring home a shipment, then they'll sit on it for a week or two, hey, these are important guys with day jobs, you know, right? Then, finally, they will ship it, and normally they are so _expletive_ cheap that despite me paying for normal shipment I get a slip in the mail that I can "call the shipment company and arrange for shipment" which inevitably adds a few days to it all, unless I surrender and send one of my employees to pick it up, saving them the final leg of the shipment and costing me instead.

Yeah, it's pretty bad. You guys in larger countries have no idea what us guys from small countries have to put up with.

Thankfully, there's the freakin' internet. Click, click, click, abrasives ordered, at half the price and for less cost of shipment than it costs me to send an employee to pick it up. Oh, and I have it at my door in a week.

The guy who sold me Awuko products doesn't even dare show up here anymore after the dressdown I gave him when I figured out how to beat their business model (hey, wake up, it's called the ******* internet!)

Ok, there, I feel better having gotten that off my chest. Phew.

/rant

In any case, I am quite interested in non-Swedish suppliers and will definetly check out your link, thanks Ralph (you're in the UK, right?)

[rhfurniture]

Below is the swedish re-sellers for
www.rego-fix.com
- the swiss company that makes the collets in my link above. They look pretty neat:
Sweden

[henrik_o]

Oh my, thank you. Never heard of them. From looking at the website they seem to be one of the few players that aren't into the shenanigans alluded to above. ER25 is out of the standard inventory, but I will absolutely give them a call monday morning.

Again, thank you.

[mindlesspappy]

Henrik

Check out <www.magnate.net (http://www.magnate.net)> for ER-25
precision spring collets and nuts.