What to do if my mystery steel is eating my HSS

[dabear3428]

Flame cuts on mild steel can be pretty tough. They will tear up almost anything on a rotary tool. A shaper is the way to go if you have one. There are few things that shapers are really good at, and this is one of them.

With a shaper you have to get the cutting tool under the dross. You also have to grind the tool in such a way that that the tip strikes first and by the time it hits the cutting edge it is already being peeled up - in other words, a positive rate.

I had to do several blocks like the one in the shaper vice in the pictures below. I could cut quite a few of them before I had to pull the tool out and re-hone it. Then I’d do another stack.

I also recommend staying away from Chinese or Indian highspeed steel. There are still a few places you can find better stuff. I’ve bought high speed steel from Griggs Steel. They have a good selection. They aren’t cheap, but it cuts way down on regrinding.

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ok first off my wife says you suck! shaper, just another tool that i don't need but now want lol
as to the cheap chinesem tooling, i hear you but there is a method to my madness i'm starting with cheap tools and equipment so i'm not afraid of tearing it up and i can afford to get a lot of stuff to try and then narrow down to the things that work for me, also i'm learning what is important to me so when i upgrade i have some idea of what to work toward. and more practice right now on cheap materials and sharpening HSS/brazed carbide is a positive right now, there may come a time when i'm working on an expensive part that needs to be precise and on a schedule but that is not now. everything i'm buying is potentially disposable if i find some stuff that works for me all the better but if i have to s#!tcan it no worries.

 

[dabear3428]

About the mystery metal... you might be better off with a known material. Technically, you're learning, but is it getting you closer to your machining goals? This may be a curmudgeon "take" but wouldn't you be better served if you design, draw, and make a part rather than wrestle with troublesome materials? The most intractable problem in machining is materials that wreck cutters. I remember one project that involved making parts out of ingots of some terrible material. Excellent machinists were reduced to changing inserts every 15 min. I know there's lots of people who use found material but IMO it's... varsity. It's too hard and depressing of a problem for the beginners. It's the pallet wood of the machinist world. I watch Jeremy (see below) too, so I'm not hating on anyone, but I think most people will get to their goals faster and more happily with known material. Also, Stephan Gotteswinter mentioned that all of his material is labeled, even the small scraps. So learning from the best, I've started labeling stuff. Known materials makes everything better.

I do not disagree with any of this but there is another perspective, i learn faster from failure than success and by playing around with hard stuff to machine i'm accelerating my learning curve, as i stated above all of my equipment is purposely cheap and as i find a problem i work out the issue without worrying about cost. any one that can successfully complete a project with pallet wood has the tools to be successful with first class material. as i learn i will sort out what works for me but for now i'm focussing on the cheap plentiful Amazon/HF/aliexpress etc stuff and will move up to better after i fully understand why i (if i do indeed) need the better equipment/materials. as to knowing precisely what a material is in order to be successful machining it is part of the learning process and i would agree with that, but by picking up this free material and trying to process it with cheap tools i learn the limitations of my cheap equipment fast.
i already have a better understanding of speeds and feeds, work hardening, rigidity issues, shaping HSS etc and all within my hobby budget, so it is a win as far as i'm concerned.

right next to my g0758 sits an Axiom 2x4 cnc with its $60 each bits, I do not learn the same things at the same rate with that machine because failures are much more expensive.

BTW i watched that video several days ago and was thinking that i do not have the patience for that level of using found materials.

 

[SouthernChap]

Now, I'm talking here about my experiences and everyone learns differently and what works for me won't be applicable to everyone.

But the problem with using cheap tooling and mystery metal is that as a beginner (and I'm talking as one seriously beginning eejit myself; also with lots of experience in being a beginner in many other hobbies in my past) is that there are variables in the experience that, as beginners, we aren't equipped to account for in our assessment of our "failures".

So, an operation was a failure. To learn from that failure, it seems to me that we need to answer one question:

"What factors contributed to the failure?"

To answer that though, we have to answer a bunch of other questions:

• Did I mess it up/do something wrong during the operation? (feeds, speeds, too light/heavy cut, etc.)
• Was it a failure of setup? (inadequate workholding, inappropriate tooling for the material, lathe not setup/adjusted correctly)
• Was it a limitation of the machine?(my little 7x14, for example, comes with some fair old constraints)
• Am I trying to do something to a material that just isn't sensible?

Those questions, for a beginner (like thee and me) can be hard enough to answer with tooling that is of known reliable quality and stock that has characteristics which are well known. If either or both of those variables are difficult to quantify, it can be hard to pin down the root cause(s) of our failures and so if not impossible, certainly very hard to learn from.

Learning through failure in any skill based hobby can be fun, is fun actually, but only if we feel like we are reliably making progress and the successes we experience come from newly gained understanding and skills that are repeatable.

Also, taking on challenges that are outside our comfort zones is great and a bit of "Eh, what's the worse that can happen" boldness is the only real way we improve, but only if they're sensibly outside our comfort zones.

Taking on challenges that are too hard (either for our skill level or the machines or tooling we have) can lead to frustration and be motivation killing.

That's just my take on this and of course your experience will be different but hey, might be worth thinking about anyway.

 

[dabear3428]

Now, I'm talking here about my experiences and everyone learns differently and what works for me won't be applicable to everyone.

But the problem with using cheap tooling and mystery metal is that as a beginner (and I'm talking as one seriously beginning eejit myself; also with lots of experience in being a beginner in many other hobbies in my past) is that there are variables in the experience that, as beginners, we aren't equipped to account for in our assessment of our "failures".

So, an operation was a failure. To learn from that failure, it seems to me that we need to answer one question:

"What factors contributed to the failure?"

To answer that though, we have to answer a bunch of other questions:

• Did I mess it up/do something wrong during the operation? (feeds, speeds, too light/heavy cut, etc.)
• Was it a failure of setup? (inadequate workholding, inappropriate tooling for the material, lathe not setup/adjusted correctly)
• Was it a limitation of the machine?(my little 7x14, for example, comes with some fair old constraints)
• Am I trying to do something to a material that just isn't sensible?

Those questions, for a beginner (like thee and me) can be hard enough to answer with tooling that is of known reliable quality and stock that has characteristics which are well known. If either or both of those variables are difficult to quantify, it can be hard to pin down the root cause(s) of our failures and so if not impossible, certainly very hard to learn from.

Learning through failure in any skill based hobby can be fun, is fun actually, but only if we feel like we are reliably making progress and the successes we experience come from newly gained understanding and skills that are repeatable.

Also, taking on challenges that are outside our comfort zones is great and a bit of "Eh, what's the worse that can happen" boldness is the only real way we improve, but only if they're sensibly outside our comfort zones.

Taking on challenges that are too hard (either for our skill level or the machines or tooling we have) can lead to frustration and be motivation killing.

That's just my take on this and of course your experience will be different but hey, might be worth thinking about anyway.

I agree with you but note that the idea of comfort level inters into it as well as capability of analyzing the failure, so far with the help of this forum i think that i can answer yes to being within on both of the above.
the other side of this coin is that the barrier to entry can be high if you only use good materials/tools which would stop my cheap @$$ from trying some things until i spent a lot more time saving money/nit picking each decision.

 

[Shotgun]

I think it would behoove us to define "failure" in this context. Was the failure "What are these 6ft sparks coming off my cut?", or "Why is my supposedly square cut is off by a half thou over six inches?". Maybe it's "I can't get the carriage to stop at the right time when I'm threading, and crash my tool into a shoulder."

Aliexpress inserts are just fine for learning the hand motions for single-point threading, and the answer to why it crashed into the shoulder is not going to be "it had a poorly formed chip breaker" or "one insert was lower by six thou than all the rest".

Sure, steel alloys all cut different, but someone just learning the machine and trying to find the basic corners of what is feasible. . . it is still steel. You're not going to run a 1/2" endmill through it at full depth using a Wrong-Fu round column. Whether you used the most expensive Iscar, or the cheapest Amazon endmill, the mill is still going to say, "No. Just no." Once you get to where you're measuring for press fits or critiquing surface finish, you can start worrying about expensive tooling. (At least in my case), there will be a pile of broken/repurposed tools that paid the price for my learning curve, and they would be broken/repurposed not matter how much they initially cost.

 

[SouthernChap]

I think it would behoove us to define "failure" in this context. Was the failure "What are these 6ft sparks coming off my cut?", or "Why is my supposedly square cut is off by a half thou over six inches?". Maybe it's "I can't get the carriage to stop at the right time when I'm threading, and crash my tool into a shoulder."

Aliexpress inserts are just fine for learning the hand motions for single-point threading, and the answer to why it crashed into the shoulder is not going to be "it had a poorly formed chip breaker" or "one insert was lower by six thou than all the rest".

Sure, steel alloys all cut different, but someone just learning the machine and trying to find the basic corners of what is feasible. . . it is still steel. You're not going to run a 1/2" endmill through it at full depth using a Wrong-Fu round column. Whether you used the most expensive Iscar, or the cheapest Amazon endmill, the mill is still going to say, "No. Just no." Once you get to where you're measuring for press fits or critiquing surface finish, you can start worrying about expensive tooling. (At least in my case), there will be a pile of broken/repurposed tools that paid the price for my learning curve, and they would be broken/repurposed not matter how much they initially cost.

Oh absolutely as far as inserts and HSS tools go. I was really thinking of tool holding stuff and not stuff like genuine Dorian/Aloris or Multifix but reasonably priced but decent quality manufacturers.

I do think 'mystery metal' stock is suboptimal for learning on though.

 

[dabear3428]

Oh absolutely as far as inserts and HSS tools go. I was really thinking of tool holding stuff and not stuff like genuine Dorian/Aloris or Multifix but reasonably priced but decent quality manufacturers.

I do think 'mystery metal' stock is suboptimal for learning on though.

i hear you but sorting out the reasonably priced but decent quality manufacturers from the pure junk is a learning curve also, i recently bought a 12ton hydraulic press off of amazon because it was 299 vs 499 for the same device from other sellers, that was a good decision it is every bit as good as the 499 version. i also bought a set of NPT taps off of amazon that were junk and replaced it with the cheapest set at HF, the HF set was cheaper and much better.

 

[Shotgun]

Heads up, @dabear3428 , there is no learning curve on picking the cheap wheat from the cheap chaf.
You're rolling the dice every time, if you don't have a tip off from someone else that has bought that tool. It's dicey, even then. Cheap tools can be good, but you can't really trust them out of the box.

 

[SouthernChap]

i hear you but sorting out the reasonably priced but decent quality manufacturers from the pure junk is a learning curve also, i recently bought a 12ton hydraulic press off of amazon because it was 299 vs 499 for the same device from other sellers, that was a good decision it is every bit as good as the 499 version. i also bought a set of NPT taps off of amazon that were junk and replaced it with the cheapest set at HF, the HF set was cheaper and much better.

Oh yeah, I probably have the same inexpensive 12T hydraulic press; they're everywhere . It's been absolutely fine.

Taps and dies seem to be really variable (unless you buy someone like Dormer, Presto or Gearwrench). I remember in the early 80's, my dad bemoaning a set of taps and dies he got from one of the engineering suppliers he used for work and ended up buying a set of Halfords that were much better.

I have a set I bought from Lidl (almost certainly made in China but QC'd by Germans!) and they're really tidy.

Mostly though, with the kind of stuff we buy, if you buy from recognised quality names, you tend to see the benefit in reliability and durability.

 

[matthewsx]

If you’re gonna use mystery steel why not learn how to spark test. It’ll give you another skill AND some idea of what you’re working with.

But, do indulge in some 12L14 so you can see what all the fuss is about.

John