Thread: Metal Lathe tool holder advice

Hi,
First of all congratulations on your new toys, I mean tools. LOL
Your on a steep learning curve with all that new machinery. If you are after any manuals go to the Grizzly site in the US and pick a machine similar, as they are good manuals for Chinese machinery and far better than what you would have got with your machines.

Those 7-9 piece tool sets are not very good (I have one) and like you said they are not standard and do chip easy, so it's not just you. One guy in the US who is right up on inserts tried to find out to see if anything was available for me, but there isn't.

If you are after spares tips they are on ebay for $23-25 a pack free postage last time I looked.

I would recommend you go to CTC website in Hong Kong and have a look their, we all buy off him so you will be fine and not get ripped off. I would also recommend you don't buy any more tooling from where you got those from as it's available for 1/3 of the price elsewhere.


In the mean time grab a stick off HSS (High speed steel) and have a go with that. The grinding is not hard once you get used to it and I can give you links to show you how if you want to go that way.

As for which insert tool is the best, I am sure Ray will speak up as he has had a bit to do with them, as my main tool is HSS.

Dave

Hi,
Can't offer specifics, just some suggestions.

Go visit a specialist tooling supplier like Comag (just down the road and around the corner from H&F)

The carbides are tough but brittle as you know, I've found that they will chip if I do any of the following; too rapid an engage with material (way too high feedrate or cut depth), too much slop in drive screws, slide wedges, or incorrectly setting of tool height resulting in large amounts of chatter. Accidently hitting with spanners or chuck key, or disengaging whilst tool is buried in material (ie at end of threading run).

If you have a limited budget like myself then it is not possible to purchase every shape and size holder for replaceable insert cutters. That being said HSS holders allow you to shape the cutter to whatever design you desire, and adjust rake angles (brass is different to steel). The downside is that you will need to resharpen them more frequently than carbide. Coolant is an essential to reducing wear rates for any cutter.

Check out Iscar website this will give you a view of what is available. I have some of these, work well.

Get yourself a feeds/speeds per metal chart.

Learn on aluminium alloys as they are more forgiving (ie alloy 2011, thread cutting)

Thanks Dave and Woodworm1. I have wondered about trying HSS. My brother has some 1/2" stock that he said I can have to try out on.

I'll check out those sites you mentioned as well.

I've been saving for my toys for about six months and have spent the time reading as much as I can and looking at some very experienced old hands on YouTube (Tubalcain has a great series of instructional videos). I've already had a reasonable play on some 2" round bar stock I had and have been trying out the mill as well.

What I've been able to do so far has been very satisfying (although pretty simple by most guys standards). My wife says the smile hasn't left my face since the presents arrived

Cheers for the advice but lots more is very welcome

Wayne

Here is the link to those sites
Most of us buy from CTC, you can add things to checkout and see the postage prices in Aus dollars (just click on the total and pick AU dollars) He also ships by sea if you want and the postage is about 1/3 of air, but you have to wait longer. My usual time by air is 7-9 days.
CTC Tools Home Page

And for manuals, just pick one that is close and it will help out a lot more than the ones you got.
Grizzly.com

You where wise getting it all at sale prices, as they where good specials for them.
I think with the dollar be up so high they should be the standard prices then discounts off that.

Dave

Wayne i too did the same as you what a waste of money since then i have upgraded slowly to name brand tool holders STGCR/ STGCL and soon SDJCR/L ( great for getting into tight spots )
make sure you dont get negative rake tips (sometimes has LF on the end of the number)
go for a tip with perhaps a um or uf eg TCMT 11 02 04-UF but there are others too heres a link to sandvik catalogue http://www2.coromant.sandvik.com/cor...eng/B1_B16.pdf that will give you some ideas.my objective was to get different tool holders but all using same tips
just to make it more confusing there are more than one sytem of identification ansi and iso just to name a couple
john

Thanks Dave and John.

Thanks for that admission John. I feel better knowing I'm not the only one who's been caught by this set. I'll keep in mind your advice about the rake and I think I'll do what you've done and buy quality over a longer period of time. When I think what else I could have spent the $140 on I could kick myself

Cheers,
Wayne

I am also in this boat, I bought one of the cheap Chinese sets to get started.
When I got my lathe, it came with a meager collection of "odds and sods"
There was one quality looking indexable tool holder, with no spare inserts, and a lot of half worn out HSS.

I have been looking at these ones from the UK, does anyone have any experience with them? -- Lathe Turning Tools from Glanze


What about the ones this guy sells ? Inserts are made in the USA.
THE ENGINEERS SHOP items - Get great deals on items on eBay Stores!

Or are we better off spending more on well known brand name gear ?

hi Wayne In my humble experience - I would advise you to get hold of some HSS blanks , 3/8" is a good size , a cup of water and the bench grinder . The HSS blanks are cheap these days , just peruse EBAY . Read all you can on the topic and go for it ...make some roughing tools and experiment. I taught myself . I can now grind up normal tools that work OK . Bear in mind that many of the text books are written with industry in mind, where time and motion people count the hours and cents . Hobby enthusiasts like us look at it somewhat differently . MIKE

Purchased my lathe a little over a year now, have not bought carbide tooling yet,
wjcoll, may be worth buying a diamond tool holder if using HSS.
Diamond Tool Holder

will be purchasing carbide tooling soon, and was looking at the glanze range from chronos, unsure if they use generic type inserts.

Chronos Ltd Engineering Tools Sets of 2 Glanze External Turning Tools DCMT Type

made my own carbide tips from old or bent carbide tipped circular saws.
basically cut a small piece off of the saw, ground a slot using the thin angle grinder cutting disk into the end of a hss bit, plus shaping it in a bench grinder so the tip sits at the correct angle then mig welded it.

even made a carbide tip for the diamond tool holder, they work well, but do eventually wear out, only good for shallow cuts.
if cutting too deep it knocks the carbide tip off.
mainly use it for machining the rough edges of disks that had been plasma cut ( bought cheaply as scrap), or for the first cut on black steel, as the outer black crap seems to wear out HSS quickly.
they don't seem to chip when doing broken cuts.

heres a chart with ansi / iso conversions
just to mess with your head
http://www2.coromant.sandvik.com/cor...SA_klick_I.pdf

For a small lathe CCMT tips are good a good starting point,,, try going and seeing a rep from Seco or ISCAR (ISCAR is better)

Originally Posted by tanii51

Wayne i too did the same as you what a waste of money since then i have upgraded slowly to name brand tool holders STGCR/ STGCL and soon SDJCR/L ( great for getting into tight spots )
make sure you dont get negative rake tips (sometimes has LF on the end of the number)
go for a tip with perhaps a um or uf eg TCMT 11 02 04-UF but there are others too heres a link to sandvik catalogue http://www2.coromant.sandvik.com/cor...eng/B1_B16.pdf that will give you some ideas.my objective was to get different tool holders but all using same tips
just to make it more confusing there are more than one sytem of identification ansi and iso just to name a couple
john

John
do you have a place for cheap stgcl holders?
i came across some cheap inserts and now I need some or a tool holder to suit

eskimo i found a left and right hand stgcl/r 1616 h11.. used tool holders at one of the local used machinery dealers the shanks are a bit big ( 16mm) but i think i can mill them down to 12 mm to fit my tool holders
john
ps i only have negative rake tips ( came with the tools) so i need to get some positve rake tips to go with them
the negative rake ones should be ok to machine cast with i think
john

Could be wrong but if the holders are suited to Neg rake inserts I dont think you can use Pos rake in them.
In regards to your tool holders only taking 1/2",12mm tooling cant you get tool holders to except 16mm/5/8" shanks.