Concerning Al Drew's collet noses, I have a real GRIPE about these! I have 3 of them and none of them work properly on my 3 collet brackets, which consist of a straight (tom mount), side mount and slightly off-center mounts. I kept thinking that maybe all my brackets were somehow defective. By "not working properly, I mean that the collet will not tighten (grip) around the Swivo hex shaft. I then tried original machined patent-pending noses, and guess what? The original nose will tighten the collet firmly against the hex shaft! My educated guess is that Al Drew's inside machining is micro-inches off, but enough to cause this problem. This is easily seen by how far down the collet the nose will thread. The original machined Pat-Pending nose will thread ****her down. Now, this may also be dependent on the collet bracket itself, but I have 3 brackets and any combination of my 3 Al Drew noses don't work! I've had to resort to purchasing original bracket/noses to have them work.
Tommyp, what do you think? Am I the only person having this issue?
I even received a nose from Al where the chrome peeled off in places. Al did send me a replacement. That replacement also had one bat handle that came off! Obviously a machining problem! Rather than get another replacement, I chose to put a dab of epoxy on the handle. It's been fine ever since!
Mark (spending too much $$$ on Rogers collet noses!)