Turning cast iron, carbide or HSS preferred?

I would suggest you cover EVERYTHING that isn't actually involved in the cut, and cover anything close by, too. I promise you will be glad you did.
 
No screw holes to deal with, I have to add those myself, a chance to use my transfer screws.

I know very little of carbide, but what I have came with the lathe, a set of 1/2" holders made by H.B. Rouse. They have silver grey triangular inserts maybe 3/8" along each side. I don't know if these are good or cheap, but they say made in U.S.A. so guessing at the least they are not bottom of the barrel ebay specials.

On the surface finish, it seems I was just being too timid and taking too light of a cut. I cranked it up and by taking 2-3x deeper cuts I'm getting a nice shiny finish.


I've been able to spend very little time in the shop the past 8 or 9 months, but it is starting to come back to me.
 
mikey said:
I would suggest you cover EVERYTHING that isn't actually involved in the cut, and cover anything close by, too. I promise you will be glad you did.
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Too late, but I have a shop vac. The chips are like grains of sand, not the dust I've heard about so they don't seem to travel all that far.
 
I’ve found that there is cast iron and then there is cast iron. Often completely different beasts. Carbide preferred.
 
On uninterupted cuts I ll use brazed c2 carbide. There are times though I like hss with high cobalt just for the fact if I lose the edge I can just go over to the grinder and touch it up rather than eat up an insert. I usually start with the high speed for economics.
I d suggest to wipe down the oil and cover your ways and whatever you can. I use foil to cover and tape a section to the crosslide to overlap the ways. I actually don t mind cast, but it can be quite mysterious with imperfections.
 
As Mark I use C2 brazed carbide for cast iron. C5 or C6 grade carbide does not seem to be as shock resistant.
Aaron, the shop vac idea is what I use as well. It might have helped to wet the c.i. with kerosene or furnace oil to keep dust down.
Those triangular inserts should work, is that what you used?
 
Aaron_W said:
On the surface finish, it seems I was just being too timid and taking too light of a cut. I cranked it up and by taking 2-3x deeper cuts I'm getting a nice shiny finish.
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If you need to take small cuts you can crank up the feed rate, cast iron likes a lot of feed from my experience.

Stu
 
Titanium Knurler said:
Maybe more than I wanted to know:)
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I was trying to be subtle but I couldn't think of a way , very sorry ;)

I think it's an under rated thing to be careful of with cast iron, their is a lot of silicon in it and I under stand in the olden days when people did a lot of cast iron and before extraction was common (as were dust masks ;) ) that water was often used insted of cutting fluid to keep dust down.

Stu
 
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