What Did You Buy Today?

Most of what I make on the lathe is titanium so yes, for that I won't bother with HSS. I tried them on Ti didn't last long. I'm also not that experienced with grinding tool bits. The few HSS tools I had I made at the local community college on their grinder. My bench grinder at home sucks but I do have a somewhat decent belt grinder now. I keep telling myself I may try HSS again for aluminum but I guess I'm too lazy. Really I have no interest. I actually bid on a lot of NOS Latrobe blanks not too long ago but went for more than I wanted to pay. I have so many inserts that I have paid $1-$3 ea when there were crazy deals on ebay that I seriously may not have to buy inserts for my most used tools for the next 20+ yrs.
 
darkzero said:
Most of what I make on the lathe is titanium so yes, for that I won't bother with HSS. I tried them on Ti didn't last long. I'm also not that experienced with grinding tool bits. The few HSS tools I had I made at the local community college on their grinder. My bench grinder at home sucks but I do have a somewhat decent belt grinder now. I keep telling myself I may try HSS again for aluminum but I guess I'm too lazy. Really I have no interest. I actually bid on a lot of NOS Latrobe blanks not too long ago but went for more than I wanted to pay. I have so many inserts that I have paid $1-$3 ea when there were crazy deals on ebay that I seriously may not have to buy inserts for my most used tools for the next 20+ yrs.
Click to expand...



Sharpened carbide probably does pretty good but I’ve heard of honed hss doing pretty good it titanium.

I need to get more lathe tooling at some point. I got a manual lathe and tons of tooling for that. But bought a Mazak cnc and need to get it fully tooled up. What brand tool holders do you buy?
 
Ianagos said:
Sharpened carbide probably does pretty good but I’ve heard of honed hss doing pretty good it titanium.

I need to get more lathe tooling at some point. I got a manual lathe and tons of tooling for that. But bought a Mazak cnc and need to get it fully tooled up. What brand tool holders do you buy?
Click to expand...

It's not necessarily only the performance of HSS as to why I choose not to use it. They do work on Ti but the life is not as long before needing to re-hone or sharpen. Being indexable plays a big part of it. Swap an insert & I can quickly be back to machining without loosing track. I also have tool offsets set for many of my tools & recorded for certain operations for some of the items I was making on a regular basis. Some of my form/grooving tools I rely on their shape being consistent in size for my recorded measurments. Indexable tools are much more convenient & quicker to use for me.

I haven't actually set tool offsets in my DRO yet but plan on it. I'm not a CNC guy. I'm also just a hobbyist so I may not always do things conventionally but my methods for keeping track of tooling & how I use them works for me.

The ones I just purchased there are pics above. A number of my tools are Dorian that I got from the local Travers but I use holders from various common name brands. Brands don't matter to much as long as they are good quality.
 
darkzero said:
It's not necessarily only the performance of HSS as to why I choose not to use it. They do work on Ti but the life is not as long before needing to re-hone or sharpen. Being indexable plays a big part of it. Swap an insert & I can quickly be back to machining without loosing track. I also have tool offsets set for many of my tools & recorded for certain operations for some of the items I was making on a regular basis. Some of my form/grooving tools I rely on their shape being consistent in size for my recorded measurments. Indexable tools are much more convenient & quicker to use for me.

I haven't actually set tool offsets in my DRO yet but plan on it. I'm not a CNC guy. I'm also just a hobbyist so I may not always do things conventionally but my methods for keeping track of tooling & how I use them works for me.

The ones I just purchased there are pics above. A number of my tools are Dorian that I got from the local Travers but I use holders from various common name brands. Brands don't matter to much as long as they are good quality.
Click to expand...

Gotcha and I fully understand your using insert carbide tools. I also use them and in most cases carbide is better. I also have some hss ccmt inserts for my manual lathe. They are easily honed and left better finishes when I was turning a stainless barrel. My manual lathe also is slower rpms then carbide likes. I think max rpm is 1500 but around 800 it gets pretty loud so I don’t go over that much.

I have random holders and several cheap Chinese ones at the moment. They work but fit and finish is rough. Not sure I’d trust them in the cnc.

I also see the brand now that I looked a little closer. Thank you for the clarification though.
 
I would like to thank MrWhoopee for all the work he does for putting up what he finds for us online. I have one of these, and I saw this and remembered ball turning, so I got this for a 100 dollars. I'm sure SPI HSS is not a top tier name brand for boring bars, but good enough to practice with

 
Ianagos said:
Gotcha and I fully understand your using insert carbide tools. I also use them and in most cases carbide is better. I also have some hss ccmt inserts for my manual lathe. They are easily honed and left better finishes when I was turning a stainless barrel. My manual lathe also is slower rpms then carbide likes. I think max rpm is 1500 but around 800 it gets pretty loud so I don’t go over that much.

I have random holders and several cheap Chinese ones at the moment. They work but fit and finish is rough. Not sure I’d trust them in the cnc.

I also see the brand now that I looked a little closer. Thank you for the clarification though.
Click to expand...

I may try HSS again someday, I haven't on my current lathe yet. Mainly I want to make some form tools & trepanning tools.

My lathe is about the same 1400 max speed on the pulleys I normally use. With a belt change it can go 1800 max but I rarely use that pulley position. Can’t make full use of carbide to it's potential on smaller diameters but what I use is satisfactory to me. I use mostly positive inserts & high positive ground inserts for finishing.

I think I own like one 1 or 2 China insert holders but rarely use them so I don't have much experience with them long term. I'm sure they work fine though. I just figured to buy better ones from the start as I heard some of the economy ones aren't hardened well & the insert seats can wear out. I bought mostly Dorian holders over the years, again cause I could get them locally & they weren't expensive, like $50 a piece. Price has gone up though but it's been some years since I last purchased one. The same Dorian holder I just bought from the same vendor now costs $70.
 
Dorian makes some nice tools, no question about that. I sometimes wonder how good those Chinese tool holders are but never bought one to find out. Mine are Seco and Iscar and they are very good.
 
Thinking about it the only 2 China holders I own is a Shars parting/grooving tool (not blade) that uses GTL/N/R inserts. I rarely use it cause I don't like that insert style. Funny thing is it's red, like it looks like anodized red. I always thought steel couldn't be anodized.

The other is from Grizzly IIRC that uses round inserts. It's one of the cutters I use in my fly cutters with a RCGT insert. I've only used it less than a handful of times.

Since these rarely get used I think they should be ok as far as not wearing out quick. If not, I don't really care. :D

But now a days them China holders sure are cheap. I've seen them on ebay for like $15 w/ a pack of 10 inserts & shipping included! I won't try one. I have no need for anymore anyways.
 
Lanagos .Is the Mazak a slant bed ? I used strictly Valenite and Kennemetal holders and inserts in the Makino cnc . What size holders does you turret take ?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top