Thread: Quick change tool post, advice please

Originally Posted by SixtyTen

Unfortunately not, I sold all of them with the lathe to someone on the forum. Was a great deal for them.
I'm now running a 1100kg precision lathe and have a multi-fix QCTP. The multi-fix is handy for how I work, but I would not recommend it to most simply because of the price.

A good bit of advice for HSS and small lathes, is grind them to the rake and clearance angles for aluminium, and use them to cut steel. Works fantastically on low rigidity lathes and long slender parts. Same can be said for buying aluminium carbide inserts rather than steel. Most steel inserts need to be pushed reasonably hard before they will achieve anything resembling a decent finish.

I've found this about the carbide angles to be quite true - you either need a ballsy rate of feed or a ball twitching depth of cut or a pucker factor rate of feed to make them fly. Or a combination of the three that most smaller machines don't feel to be truly within their comfort zone. A good compromise is some of the stainless steel specific inserts for some reason.