Cheap expanding arbor

[DICKEYBIRD]

I bumped into these in a HF sale catalog and remembered I have a couple(Snap-On brand though) in my toolbox from "back in the day." http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/cta...emnumber=37352

I figured they might come in handy for some as of yet unknown part holding task. The hex shaft will chuck up nicely in a 3-jaw chuck even though the concentricity may leave a bit to be desired. A few shims ought'a get it pretty close though. Ya never know when it may solve a gnarly late night problem so I filed the idea away and hope I can remember it when the time comes!

I'm just sayin'....

[Carld]

I saw those a while back and had the same thought as you. I started to buy a set of them but thought, why, just buy them when I need them.

I don't think it would be to hard to machine them so they would be +/-.001" which is good enough for most jobs.

[Don Young]

Sounds like a good idea but there are some problems. The loose parts are only held on by rubber O-rings so it would be difficult to machine. The tapered parts that do the expanding are either not machined at all or machined pretty rough so they do not expand and contract smoothly or precisely. I think you would have quite a bit of error just from that. The cheap ones do not work all that well even for their intended purpose; I sometimes wind up just driving a suitably sized socket wrench in the pipe!

[Carld]

There would be a lot of fine tuning to get them accurate but it can be done. It is better than starting from zero.

[reggie_obe]

Why waste shop time trying to polish a (H.F.) turd, when expanding arbor sets appear with some regularity on FleaBay? Picked up a five piece set, sizes up to 1" for $19 plus $10 to ship.

[DICKEYBIRD]

I posted the link to the pipe expanders because they are LARGE. 3 sizes cover a range from 1 1/8" to 3 1/4". I think most all of us have the little ones you refer to.

Just a simple idea posted for possible emergency use by others to get out of a jam, holding onto a chunk of pipe or whatever.