"Cheap" inserts that *work*

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GeneT45

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It seems to come up fairly often that someone asks about cheap inserts, or a tool that uses cheap inserts. In my experience they're a very mixed bag - some decent, some great, and many that are complete duds. So... Why not highlight the winners? If you've found inexpensive inserts that work well, post them here!

I'll start, though I can't post part numbers at the moment.

Accusize APQT inserts seem nearly indestructible. I haven't used them as much as my Kennametal shell inserts, but I have yet to chip, dull, or wear one out.

Shars inserts seem pretty good in general, but their threading inserts work great for me. I've gone from using mostly HSS to Shars inserts, both edge and lay-down. They perform well both in terms of cut quality and longevity.

@MrWhoopee I'm pretty sure you've espoused a few cheap inserts - get 'em in here!

GsT

Edit: typo
 
For me cheap inserts => ebay

I use only CNMG 1/2" IC (400 series) on my lathes. Commerical quality and go real cheap if you watch. I use Iscar lay down inserts for threading

For my mills, I use only Sandvik R390 inserts. But the ship may have sailed on this one. used to be able to buy the tool holders for cheap, but not so much anymore. inserts still go for almost nothing if you watch.
 
In general I use cheap inserts because my hobby machines don't have the power and rigidity to profit from a professional quality insert.
Most of my inserts come from AliExpress. I think even the brands are fake but they perform well on my machines.
DCGT07020C, CCGT060202, K01 Korloy, from LYYZ
SP200 PC9030 ,Korloy from LYYZ
TCMT110204, CCMT060204, DCMT060204 (VT15TF) from LYYZ and KOESORT
CCMT060204 IC907, ISCAR from LYYZ

I make most of my insert holders my self and bought some on AliExpress.
 
pontiac428 said:
My favorite insert is still a ground blank of Mo-Max Cobalt run under a dribble of cutting oil, but that's me and I always gotta throw that in.
Click to expand...
I use a great deal of hand-ground cutters as well, but a lot of people seem reluctant to learn to grind (which I think is like owning a lathe and being reluctant to learn threading...). Anyhoo, inserts have their place.

GsT
 
I got most of these from BG for less than a dollar a piece ($9/box of 10?) and their great.

They are either Drillpro or Machifit, they don’t really come labeled so I just save them to my account for reorder.

The Descar are from eBay and we’re from the same supplier as the tool that uses them, labeled KPLD.



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The first carbide that I got after the ubiquitous set of 1/2” TCMT holders/inserts were Amazon Chinesium DCMT070204. Both of my QCTPs are the AXA size so most insert holders are limited to 1/2”. There was a learning curve and I went through several, breaking them very quickly. I was reworking some old rough parts so that might have been a factor. Some new old stock ISCAR came up on Marketplace and I bought all of the 070204 inserts that the seller had. The Chinese inserts didn’t give a great finish at any speed/feed combination. When I started using the ISCAR inserts the difference was huge. They gave great finishes at lower than expected speeds as long as the feed rate was kept high enough.

As I became more comfortable with using the inserts breakage diminished and now it’s rare to chip one. I learned to go back to HSS or TCMT inserts when removing rough surface oxidation and reserve the DCMT inserts for clean metal. The ISCAR inserts usually give better finishes with less effort but there are materials with which the Amazon inserts give better finishes. The IC907 coating on the ISCAR inserts work very well with my bench lathe which has just 1 horsepower as well as the 3 hp 13x40.
 
David2011 said:
The first carbide that I got after the ubiquitous set of 1/2” TCMT holders/inserts were Amazon Chinesium DCMT070204. Both of my QCTPs are the AXA size so most insert holders are limited to 1/2”. There was a learning curve and I went through several, breaking them very quickly. I was reworking some old rough parts so that might have been a factor. Some new old stock ISCAR came up on Marketplace and I bought all of the 070204 inserts that the seller had. The Chinese inserts didn’t give a great finish at any speed/feed combination. When I started using the ISCAR inserts the difference was huge. They gave great finishes at lower than expected speeds as long as the feed rate was kept high enough.

As I became more comfortable with using the inserts breakage diminished and now it’s rare to chip one. I learned to go back to HSS or TCMT inserts when removing rough surface oxidation and reserve the DCMT inserts for clean metal. The ISCAR inserts usually give better finishes with less effort but there are materials with which the Amazon inserts give better finishes. The IC907 coating on the ISCAR inserts work very well with my bench lathe which has just 1 horsepower as well as the 3 hp 13x40.
Click to expand...
Hence this thread. It's really a minefield out there. Especially for beginners, it's nice to find some good, inexpensive, inserts because you're going to ruin a few, regardless of quality, just learning how to treat them. Better to ruin a few quality import inserts than pay the price of premium brands for each mistake. OTOH if you have garbage inserts, you'll never learn, because they'll be disintegrating through no fault of your own. In my case many of my "learnings" were catastrophic - so the entire insert was lost, not just one cutting edge. The new person that starts out with junk deals with them constantly chipping, crumbling, breaking and never knows if it's the insert or the user. Starting out with a proven, decent quality insert, provides valuable feedback and having learned how to use carbide you can then fearlessly experiment with the expensive brand-name inserts without the expensive waste.

GsT
 
Okay, I'm not into insert tooling on the lathe, but I do own it an occasionally use it. One area where I do prefer insert tooling is on certain ops in the mill, like face milling. I stick to Kennametal and Iscar, and they last forever, even on hard interrupted cuts. Since the thread is about cheap inserts, I think price is more about sourcing than brand and origin. I've never bought domestic or tier 1 import inserts (Israel, Sweden) at retail, just NOS in lots or partial boxes as they come up on fleabay. The prices have gone up steeply on those as individuals (and I assume small shops) have turned to eBay as a lower cost alternative to the MSC catalog, so the competition is making it harder to nab popular sizes (I mean you, CCMT), but I'd rather search and pay a price that has a bit of a pinch than deal with cheap inserts that chip and scrap work all to easily. It's so hard to tell one rainbow-colored insert from another when you can neither trust nor verify the quality from lot to lot. With the ISO 9001 major brands, you know what you are getting without surprises.
 
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