Everything You Need To Know To Find The Best Indexable Tools

That depends on what style inserts you want to use. For 1/2" shank it's much more limted on what's available compared to larger sizes for the quality stuff. For example you will find very little for negative inserts, probably only TNMG.

It gets much better with 5/8" & 3/4" shanks. You can always mill down shanks to fit as well.

When I used 1/2" shanks most of mine were made by Dorian. I'm using 5/8" shanks now & I'm still using mostly Dorian. With the quality tooling you won't find sets though like you see with the China offerings.

What style inserts are you interested in?

That depends on what style inserts you want to use. For 1/2" shank it's much more limted on what's available compared to larger sizes for the quality stuff. For example you will find very little for negative inserts, probably only TNMG.

It gets much better with 5/8" & 3/4" shanks. You can always mill down shanks to fit as well.

When I used 1/2" shanks most of mine were made by Dorian. I'm using 5/8" shanks now & I'm still using mostly Dorian. With the quality tooling you won't find sets though like you see with the China offerings.

What style inserts are you interested in?

Yea, I thought of milling them down. That's just hard for me to do after spending a good bit of money on quality tooling. It just seems wrong. I'm not sure on the inserts. I'm not an insert authority by any means. I was thinking diamond or triangle just because it seems the most versatile and you get more cutting edges so it's a bit economical also.

Yea, I thought of milling them down. That's just hard for me to do after spending a good bit of money on quality tooling. It just seems wrong. I'm not sure on the inserts. I'm not an insert authority by any means. I was thinking diamond or triangle just because it seems the most versatile and you get more cutting edges so it's a bit economical also.

I hear ya, although many people do it, I'm not a fan of milling down tool shanks. But I have on some cheaper ones & used ones. The ones I bought new were purchased in the size I needed.

Diamond & triangle are most common & they perform well.

For diamond there is 85°(C), 55°(D), & 35°(V). I personally like 85° & 55°. I don't have a need for 35°, not yet anyway.

For C diamond CCMT/CCGT inserts are very common. The holders are SCLCR for RH & SCLCL for LH. You can easily find these in 1/2" shanks as well as boring bars.

For D diamond DCMT/DCGT the holders are SDUCR/L, also available in 1/2" shanks & boring bars.

For triangle inserts there are many more holders than the ones above for these holders that orient the position of the insert for different operations. Search TCMT holder to see all the different ones.

Also pay attention to the insert size for 1/2" shanks. They come in 21.5_ (1/4" IC) & 32.5_ (3/8" IC) sizes. I prefer the 3/8" inscribed circle size but one reason to go with the smaller 1/4" IC insert is if you use boring bars that take the same size, you can use the same inserts for your turning tools & boring bars.

BTW the inserts I mentioned above are all positive inserts. Not sure what size lathe you have but with 1/2" shanks you get much better reults using positives than negatives.

Also check out latheinserts.com. Curtis is very knowledgeable & used to work for Kennametal. He doesn't list the higher end brands on his site but his stuff is usually always of good quality. Last I remember most of the tool holders he was supplying are Toolmex (TMX).

Seems like I'm buying a lot of tooling lately. I guess I have a problem? I want to get a good set of lathe tooling. Shars and anything else made in China is OUT on this one. I want a good set. I have a China set that came with my old Sheldon and it's JUNK. I don't want to end up with more junk. I wanted to maybe find a Kennametal set but I can't go any higher than a .5" shank. Can anyone recommend a good brand name made somewhere in the Western culture that carries .5" shanks?[/QUOTE!

Kennemetal might as well change there name to KennaKrap. I sent back two SCLCR toolholders , inserts would not fit pocket, beauty machining just done incorrectly. BTW they make stuff all over in second and third world countries now. My holders were made in Bulgaria. Might as well have gotten them from China on ebay for 20 cents on the dollar.

Hello all.

Guangzhou Ruiyi Technology Co., Ltd. Product Page

After reading through this thread, http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th= , I want to get some recommendations on which particular indexable lathe tools for a home lathe (Myford ML7 in my case) to cut the usual array of metals.

I must stress that I am a newcomer to metalwork, and not an engineer by trade, so the acronyms etc are double Dutch to me e.g. "CCMT inserts".

Finally, I am only interested in quality tools (without being industry leading!), having been disappointed with prematurely bought imported tools in the past.

For hobby use I don't think you would go too far wrong buying a set from any of the suppliers advertising on this site. Buying randomly off ebay and the like is more risky

For my mini-lathe I used Glanze holders; they were fine. When I bought a bigger lathe from Warco I got an unbranded set from them; it also is fine.

Replacement inserts requires a bit of care, the cheap inserts I bought at an Exhibition were a disappointment, but the same spec from Arc were good.

Inserts make life easy for the beginner because you don't have to worry about sharpening. Apart from the learning curve, HSS is well worth the effort. The ML7 is a 70 year old design with a relatively low top spindle speed. As Carbide inserts are at their best worked hard at high-speed, they don't really shine on older equipment. For hobby use, I don't think you're missing much by not having a fast lathe. After learning on this forum how to sharpen HSS, it's what I tend to use most these days. This is even though my lathe has the sort of oomph preferred by inserts.

The world of 'CCMT' can be quite bewildering because it's a system that codifies a wide range of inserts for different purposes. Most of them you will never want to use. It becomes simpler to navigate the system when you have a set of holders because these only take one size of insert, which narrows the field. Once you have a known set of holders, you can ask about inserts for them here.

Dave

You will, I'm afraid, have to have a little understanding of the designation codes. Many of us use the CCMT style of insert as a good general purpose shape for both turning and facing. Something like this I favour the 8mm size for a Myford. The JB holders are good value, I don't see any point in getting holders from the premium brands for amateur use. The final figure at the end of the the stream of numbers for the inserts is the radius of the tip of the tool and I would recommend getting 08 for roughing and 02 for finishing in steel. The CCGT tips are specified for aluminium and stainless steel. They are very good also for fine finishing mild steel but are very delicate so best saved for a really fine finish. The CCMT/CCGT tips are very versatile and can also be used in boring bars of various sizes. They will give you a good start. After gaining a bit of experience you may find that you need other shapes for particular purposes.

As for brands for the tips – I find those sold by JB to be good quality but Sumitomo, Sandvik and those sold by APT all have good reputations.

I thought I ought to respond fairly quickly before you are told to grind HSS or get a tangential toolholder (which I'm sure are good and worthy sentiments, but not what you asked )

HTH,

Rod

Doh! too late – see what I mean?

Edited By Roderick Jenkins on 06/02/ 12:42:19

All good info re CCMT shape inserts but it is fine for turning and facing as long as there are no acute angled parts on the work into which the tip won't go, you can then go to a DCMT which is less included angle and will turn quite intricate shapes. VBMT insert are the most "pointed " but available with a range of tip radius from .20mm (02), 04, 08, 12.

Link below to good selection which you may find helpful.

APT inserts and holders /**LINK**

Edit: I now see the furthest right insert on the top row is a DCMT shape not CCMT as labelled.

Emgee

Edited By Emgee on 06/02/ 15:17:40

I would be choosy and buy the best cutter holder within budget. You can source your inserts from any of your choice, but if the holder is not a good fit to the inserts, is flexible, slightly the wrong angle, poor threads in the screw hole, etc. you are stuck with it.

At the same time, if you total one – due to inexperience – it can be an expensive lesson!

Want more information on Indexable Tools? Feel free to contact us.

It really depends on the intricacy of your work. Bigger tools are great for long, straight surface cuts; smaller ones are necessary for those jobs where access is more diffiCU

lt.

I think there must be many more discussion threads on this topic than just the one you have listed. Plenty of u-toob expanation/discussion, too. I expect you will eventually buy a set, then end up buying better ones in the future, or realise they are not always all they are claimed to be.

Edited By not done it yet on 06/02/ 17:42:11

To echo what Dave wrote, my honest opinion is that you would be best to leave them well alone ( I apreciate this wasnt your original question but I think you may end up coming to this conclusion in time), especially as a newcomer to turning. I say this from experience, and the trusty ML7 wont run anywehere near the optimal speeds that most inserts are designed for. Add in the cost of new tips and the requirement to have specific tips for specific types and grades of metal and for me it becomes more hassle that its worth – with one exception, and that is parting. I do have several sets of index lathe tools but these are for specific jobs on specific materials, and dont see the light of day very often. Best advice would be to buy one general purpose holder and see how that goes as opposed to a full set, half of which never get used anyway – and have a go at grinding your own hss bits, either way good luck and enjoy.

The code is a bundle of letters and numbers each indicating one of the characteristics of the insert, how many corners, what angles, how big, how thick, what radius at the ends, what sort of chip-breaker, what composition of carbide, what coating, etc. Only a big chart with lots of the options is going to help, but I'm sure that such things exist in metric as well as imperial or US units.

What you say 'quality' though, another nest of vipers is involved. To a quality engineer (who ought to know, I suppose) this means how accurately the product matches the specification called for by the designer. And I'm sure that is no help, but it does mean that you need to explain what, exactly, you mean by 'quality' for your needs.

Regards, Tim

Edited By Tim Stevens on 06/02/ 18:30:01

I have a Myford Speed 10 and rarely use anything other than carbide inserts and they work just fine provided you get decent inserts. There is a lot of cheap rubbish out there and I am sure this is what puts people off using carbide inserts. They try a poor type and get poor results and think that they are not suitable for small lathes. Buy a really good brand like Sumitomo and you won't go far wrong. The sharp edged polished high rake inserts are my favourite and they work very well indeed on aluminium and also steel but you must take care with them as they are easily damaged if you are too rough with them.

These inserts don't need to be run at high speeds to get good results, just experiment to find the best speeds and feeds and don't be put off trying by those that say they don't work: they do work.

Doug

I use CCMT and CCGT from JB in one of their toolholders.

You do need to work them hard to get good results, but a decent depth of cut is more important than sheer speed – they are not good at the light shaving cuts HSS excels at. This means a bit of planning to make sure your sizing cut is not too light.

I've also found ArcEuros inserts work well, but I've only tried their parting ones.

One oddity I came across recently was some really nasty stainless. The carbide was making it work harden causing poor surface finish and difficulty of follow up cuts. In the end I use my tangential HSS tool but it needed to be kept very sharp – honed after every few runs.

I have a mini-lathe.

Neil

A couple of weeks ago I bought a set of 10mm Glanze CCMT tools, also bought an 8mm boring bar from RDG as well as a couple of spare inserts.

If I had only used the RDG inserts I would of binned the lot on the first day, they were terrible. The inserts included with the Glanze tools are miles ahead. I also bought some CCGT sharp inserts which are excellent for aluminium and are good for light finishing passes on mild steel.

If your worried about surface finish then yes you do have to take heavy cuts, and you can't doddle with the feeds either. However I'm getting great results using them, even on some 3inch OD EN19T I have, granted I can't take much more than a 30thou cut in that, but after all it's a 0.5hp 40year old myford.

Best advice would be to try and see what you think, rather than rely on prejudiced views on here, I only use two types of insects although the CCGT tips will cut just about anything but can be quite delicate. IF you don't like them then try HSS. My personal preference is for indexable tips over has because they work for me. As for expense, in the grand scheme of things are not that expensive really. I have not broken a tip for ages so for me are quite economical.

Lots of places to get tips from, even good old fleshy.

There is an awful lot of rot talked about indexable tipped tooling by the HSS diehards, best to try and evaluate yourself what works for you and your setup. Plenty of miniature lathe owners who use indexable carbide tipped tooling and getting good results, so should not be a problem on your setup.

You will soon learn what to do and not do for tip longevity.

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