Quick change tool post, advice please

It's actually not that hard to grind a good HSS tool - you do need to know what you are working and what you want to achieve. You need a flat and sharp grinding wheel, and a cooling source nearby as heat will kill HSS surprisingly quickly. A blunt grinding wheel produces a LOT of heat and won't help your case. I have a set of angle gauges I got given by a mate that was no longer in that trade - same guy that gave me the Sandvik carbide gear. That helps. Hardest part is the tool's nose radius...

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Originally Posted by No.3

It's actually not that hard to grind a good HSS tool - you do need to know what you are working and what you want to achieve. You need a flat and sharp grinding wheel, and a cooling source nearby as heat will kill HSS surprisingly quickly. A blunt grinding wheel produces a LOT of heat and won't help your case. I have a set of angle gauges I got given by a mate that was no longer in that trade - same guy that gave me the Sandvik carbide gear. That helps. Hardest part is the tool's nose radius...

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Unless it's large I never grind the nose radius, Form it with an oilstone by hand by sliding the stone around the radius.

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Originally Posted by No.3

It's actually not that hard to grind a good HSS tool - you do need to know what you are working and what you want to achieve. You need a flat and sharp grinding wheel, and a cooling source nearby as heat will kill HSS surprisingly quickly. A blunt grinding wheel produces a LOT of heat and won't help your case. I have a set of angle gauges I got given by a mate that was no longer in that trade - same guy that gave me the Sandvik carbide gear. That helps. Hardest part is the tool's nose radius...

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Ive ground a lot of chisels and plane blades over the years, so Im pretty good at not burning em.
And Im sure Ill pick up the tool grinding in time, I also have a few slip stones I scored years ago.
I think Ill make some kind of fixture for one of my grinders to help.

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Originally Posted by SixtyTen

The stuff from machinery house is literally the same chinese stuff you get on Ebay and Ali, down to the same packaging and everything. machinery house just charges 10x as much. Im all for supporting local business, but I wont be bent over like that.

I had a 200 series on my AL320G (320mm swing) and it was the perfect fit. I ended up with about 20 tool holders over the years. Probably actually needed about 12-14, but 6 or 7 would get you well on the way.

Make a nice rack for them that mounts on the back of the splash guard of the lathe, and make it so you can see the tool tip so you know what your picking up.

I bought a bunch of holders from ToolsNZ, prices are much better than machinery house and the shipping time is much less than ebay or ali.

I would highly recommend getting cheap carbide holders and inserts. You will get much much better results than HSS, as you probably cant grind a half decent tool (no offence) HSS has its place, but 90% of my work is done with carbide. For inserts, the Deskar brand is pretty good. Kyocera is almost as good as some of the american stuff. More expensive than Deskar, but significantly less than USA made or European brands.

Once you have spent some time with decent cutting tools, then you will know what a tool sounds and looks like when it is cutting well and can experiment with grinding HSS tools until they perform well. Not all HSS is equal. Stay well away from anything unbranded. Evercut and Assab are the two most available good brands in NZ.

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Thats some good advice mate, I have a bunch of HSS and carbide already.
Ill have a go at grinding as I want to learn, and Ive already got a lot of experience grinding chisels and plane blades etc. But thanks for the advice!
SO.... are you telling me you have a surplus of tool holders and need to sell them???

I am in the process of modifying some of the QC tool holders to lower the centre height by 4mm. They are as tough as old boots but I am nibling them down in the mill with a TC end mill on a fairly low speed, lots of coolant and 1mm cuts. A bloody pain but that is the only way. Roughing your centre block down on a big old blacksmith's grinder and then a light trueing cut may work, but still time consuming.

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Originally Posted by 40mm

Thats some good advice mate, I have a bunch of HSS and carbide already.
Ill have a go at grinding as I want to learn, and Ive already got a lot of experience grinding chisels and plane blades etc. But thanks for the advice!
SO.... are you telling me you have a surplus of tool holders and need to sell them???

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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.

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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.

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Thanks.
Hows that new workshop going?

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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.

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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.

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Originally Posted by No.3

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.

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Buy some TNGG style high rate cermet inserts and you will not regret it for a low power machine. They do well in many things. A great generalist insert.

https://carbidenz.co.nz/tngg160404r-...-wonder-insert

sometimes HSS is the best choice if you are doing an unusual/awkward job, esp if your machine is fairly light. Assab 17 is head and shoulders more durable than the rest imo, and surprisingly affordable if you sniff around a bit. also in recent times i've been using "wonder inserts" from carbide nz for things like resurfacing the clutch face on a flywheel (localised work hardened patches) where a normal carbide insert "pushes off" a whisker. https://carbidenz.co.nz/tngg160408r-...wonder-insert/

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Originally Posted by OPO

sometimes HSS is the best choice if you are doing an unusual/awkward job, esp if your machine is fairly light. Assab 17 is head and shoulders more durable than the rest imo, and surprisingly affordable if you sniff around a bit. also in recent times i've been using "wonder inserts" from carbide nz for things like resurfacing the clutch face on a flywheel (localised work hardened patches) where a normal carbide insert "pushes off" a whisker. https://carbidenz.co.nz/tngg160408r-...wonder-insert/

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Good timing same suggestion. We have turned as little as 0.01mm off shafts before at work and often have hours of run time on a corner. As long as you don't smash them 6 cutting edges makes a very affordable insert that doesn't require high speed or deep cuts and gives a great finish.

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Originally Posted by 40mm

Thats some good advice mate, I have a bunch of HSS and carbide already.
Ill have a go at grinding as I want to learn, and Ive already got a lot of experience grinding chisels and plane blades etc. But thanks for the advice!
SO.... are you telling me you have a surplus of tool holders and need to sell them???

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I'm always willing to come out and impart all my tool grinding knowledge, after those 2 minutes we can just solve the problems of the world.