What brand do you prefer for boring?

I'm new to the CNC turning thing. I would like to go with one distributer, and have everything match like I do with my milling. What do you prefer for say:

Boring in mild steel?
in Aluminum?
in Stainless?

Turning in the above?

Grooving and Cut-Off in the above?

What brand over-all is your favorite?

One more thing, is there a insert diagram online somewhere that I can look up?

Thanks

JImmy

I use iscar almost exclusively.They got just about everything.Go to their website and request a catalog.The catalog tells u everything you wanna know.

p.s. If you are on the east coast,the local distributor is American Tool(TX)

iscar or ph horn to groove.
sandvik bore bars with mitsubishi inserts

If you try to standardize on one brand you'll be getting less than optimum tooling in many instances. Some of them claim to be able to do everything with the best of results, but I've not found that to be true, and I've never talked to anyone else who owns a shop and thinks its true either. The competition is just too keen for one manufacturer to be on the top of the heap all the way across the board.

Thank you for the replies. Metalmunchr, I know what you mean. Different companies make some things better, however, with the size of my run of parts, I don't really care about being productive. I'm mostly running 1 to 25 parts on my CNCs. The 25 is actually a high number...usually no more than 10 pcs/part. I think that the time that I save with organization would be more than with the actual cutting tool itself. When or if I start getting into large orders of say more than a 1,000 parts, I may look into who does the best as far as individual tool catagories. For the most part, I would like to know who is the best over-all efficiency.

Thanks again for the help!

+1 for Iscar.

Jimmy,
The vast majority of our boring bars are Kennametal. We have better luck with their de-vibe and heavy metal bars than anybody. Most of this is usually deep hole (6-8 D) in stainless. For everything else, it's a mix. Sandvick, Carbaloy, and Iscar. If it's a special, we go to Kline Tools for insert stuff or down the road to M.A. Ford for specialty carbide.
JR

Thanks Guys! I think that I'm going to go with Kennemetal. They seem to have all the bases covered. When I get into some production, I will look at the best maker for the feature.

Thanks again! JR...is Kline tool in Newton?

Jimmy,
Boy, I can't believe that I let one slip by. Yes, it's Cline (not Kline) tool in Newton. http://www.clinetool.com/

We joke that they're the only place with delivery worse than ours.
JR

Jimmy,
Regardless of which brand you go with, I'd highly recommend you pick up an Iscar multi-directional turning tool. Several people make them, but AFAIK Iscar is the only one who makes a double ended insert for theirs. Carboloy, etc is typically $10-$12 each for single ended inserts, and Iscar is about the same for double ended ones. All brands of MDTT's use brand specific inserts, so they're not interchangable from one brand toolholder to another. These are real killer tools on some jobs, where you can run everything on the OD, including grooves, profiling, and part-off with the same tool. I keep one set up in one of my lathes with one offset for the leading corner and another for the trailing corner (ie T0101 and T0111 for the same tool #1) and its a real convenience on a lot of jobs.

Its worthwhile to try to be as productive as possible on even the small quantities. It helps you know what can and can't be done, and gives you a better handle on where the price should be on larger quantities. Most folks who have the potential of being a large quantity customer are going to try you first on those 10 and 20 pc jobs, and If you're at $8.50 each for 20 pcs on a part that they can buy for 7 bucks in quantities of 200, then chances are you'll get a shot at the bigger quotes too. If you're at $11, they're going to figure that you'll be way high on larger quantities, so you never get an opportunity to quote. I've read some of your posts about getting work, and I'd say the two most important things in job shop quoting are (1) to know what a particular part is worth in the market and (2) to learn what each customer is willing to pay in relation to that market value. This allows you to eliminate those clowns who just shop continuously until they find people who will work for 60-70 percent of market value. You'll also find some customers may be willing to pay above average prices, and its important to be able to identify these folks, because keeping them happy is a major priority

Metlmunchr, words well spoken. The MDT Tooling is great stuff, I went Carboloy early on before everybody jumped in on the MDT bandwagon. They do have double sided inserts they go for about 15-18.00 each, or 2-3 bucks more then the single sided.

I don't think anyone has mentioned Valenite.
I machine parts out of 6061 and 7075
aluminum and 1018 steel for the most part and
all my jobs repeat frequently so cycle time reduction is money in the bank. I have tried
Ceratip, Iscar, Sandvik, etc,etc and the Valenite
turning and cut-off inserts are the best for me.
My knock on Iscar is they discontinued a few items I used a lot of about 4 years back, I will
never buy their products again,.......Bob