I keep on banging this drum, but with a small milling machine you can easily run out of headroom once you put a vice on the table and a chuck in the spindle. Since the range of cutter sizes is quite limited, say 3 or 4 of both metric and imperial, a good option may be to use MT3 collets direct in the taper, once for each size. Not only will you get more headroom but better rigidity.
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As Vic says you can fet other issues if you just use MT or R8 collets, Yes they are handy when you need the head room but depending on your mill's spindle nose can be even worse than a large ER32 or even ER40 nut as vision is poor and that is more of an issue if using handwheels than a DRO or CNC plus any clamps get in the way. Also note in the photo the quill has had to be fully extended to get the cutter below the bottom of the guard which does nothing to help rigidity and eating up any savings in head room.
Myself I generally use ER32 on the manual X3 mill which includes a good 90% of my drilling as well as milling, I have finger collets that get used for when I need the height or for one particular shank cutter and also have a couple of sidelocks but have not used then in the 6months or so since I bought them. Also got an ER16 for Xmas but have not used it yet mainly as collets are in the other workshop and can't be bothered to go and get them but would if the ER16 was really needed due to access.
the SX2.7 I tend to use the ER25 99% of the time and have used sidelocks in anger on that, don't think the finger collets have been used.
KX3 is almost all ER16 as I don't use large cutters on that and the smaller nut makes it easier to get in and clear swarf.
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Having 5C on the lathe I'm not so worried about workholding on that but do have ER32 & 25 blocks
So really there is no ideal one item does it all and what suits one person uses and one particular machine may not suit another but my opinion is ER will do most things from the start and then add as and when needed
Edited By JasonB on 05/03/ 08:27:44
My Tormach mill uses a 3/4" shank ER20 collet chuck which I mount in a 3/4" R8. Tormach also sells ER32 collet chucks. The advantage of the Tormach system is you have accurate and repeatable tool offset heights, providing you change out the chuck with the collet. I have about twenty different tool holders so I can have the whole set of pre-referenced milling tooling set up and switching out tooling during a job doesn't require re-referencing.
I modified my old mill to use the Tormach system as well. It simply involved removing some material from the face of a r8 R8 collet. My spindle face ran true so no modification was needed there. Tormach has a white paper on making this modification.
The tool holders will also work in a lathe but the disadvantage is the lack of a through hole. The solution would be to make or buy a spindle mounted ER chuck.
I opted for a 5C collet chuck for my lathe because I already had a set of 5c collets. Unfortunately, I had overlooked the limited grip range of the 5C collet and in order to have a complete set for work holding in the lathe, I would have to add, at least, the odd 1/32" collets and ideally, the odd 1/64" collets which would be 17 additional collets by 32nds or 51 additional by 64ths. Doing it over, I would have opted for an ER32 chuck or even an ER40 chuck.
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