MTI BXA toolholders any good?

[jrdeahl]

Found these BXA compatible toolholders. Will fit my BXA toolpost. But are they any good. Pretty cheap!

http://www.billstoolcrib.com/quickchangew200.htm

[Tin Falcon]

good question I posted a thread about this a while back. I bought an AXA import tool holder I had to adjust it on the belt sander to make it fit my aloris tool post. but $15 for the import vs $ 45 for the aloris. It was soft so only a minute or two on the belt sander it was done. IMHO tolerances on these are not consistant. But for HSM use they should be fine. Also should be soft enough to touch up on the mill or shaper if needed. For that price you can aford a few minutes rework if needed. I would not expect Aloris or even Phase II quality. What is the old addage? you pay your money and take your chances.
Regards
Tin

[MTNGUN]

I haven't sampled that particular source. The Phase II import BXA holders that enco sells are fine and dandy. The BXA holders that I purchased from Grizzly had very soft setscrews and the heads quickly stripped out. I replaced all the set screws and now the Grizzly holders work fine.

Anyway, thanks for the link. I'll give them a try one of these days.

[pcarpenter]

I have a Phase II BXA series post. I have several holders I've bought since then from two different sources and both work fine.

I have several from Grizzly. These are physically externally larger than the ones that came with the Phase II post and also larger than the others that came from www.cdcotools.com (http://www.cdcotools.com). I decided I liked the extra length of these holders. The department downstairs from me here at the U has a couple of the Grizzly G4003 lathes and they both came with their BXA series tool post which appears to be a bit chunkier than the Phase II.....but either way, the holders all interchange well.

I have noticed one common thread on this topic...it seems, if I recall correctly, that the import toolholders that tended to be a bit off of standard....tended to be from India. I have an Indian made (Horrible Freight) AXA set on my mini-lathe, however and have successfully used Phase II AXA holders on it.

Paul