Helical Tool Vs. Maritool?

I've been using Helical Tool endmills pretty extensively in 17-4 H900 and Ti6Al4V-ELI for the past five years with excellent results. I'm noticing however that Maritool offers similar, if not direct replacement items for a much better price. Has anyone here run both brands, who might weigh in on the performance comparison?

Thanks!

I'be been using these

.500 Double Ended Variable Flute X 1.0 LOC MariTool

on 4140 Rc 28-32 with good results

also being double ended quite economical as well

What is the cost of your time?

That question is somewhat rhetorical. Almost any new tool is going to require some of your time to tune, adjusting speeds/feeds slightly to find the same sweet spot that you've found with Helical over the last 5 years.

Also, a bit of constructive criticism/feedback for MariTool. (Maybe Frank can jump in about this in case I'm spreading misinformation, in which case I apologize ahead of time.) But the MariTool site has seemed to suggest that MariTool is the manufacturer for some tools that pretty clearly have packaging/labeling from others, suggesting that at least some of their product lines are re-sold. I've had pretty good luck with tools actually from MariTool, but slightly less good luck with tools that seem to be from others based on packaging/labeling. This has made me slightly wary of buying new tools from MariTool, because I'm not totally sure if it's actually made by them (who I trust).

mhajicek said:

I've been using Helical Tool endmills pretty extensively in 17-4 H900 and Ti6Al4V-ELI for the past five years with excellent results. I'm noticing however that Maritool offers similar, if not direct replacement items for a much better price. Has anyone here run both brands, who might weigh in on the performance comparison?

Thanks!

Click to expand...

I haven’t run both, but I am curious - if you’re doing a lot of roughing, have you given the 7 flute roughers from Helical a try? We just ran a bunch of 17-4 and 13-8 in H900 condition and I think we’d be hard pressed to find anything that came close to matching the productivity and material removal we got with those 7 fluters.

dodgin said:

I haven’t run both, but I am curious - if you’re doing a lot of roughing, have you given the 7 flute roughers from Helical a try? We just ran a bunch of 17-4 and 13-8 in H900 condition and I think we’d be hard pressed to find anything that came close to matching the productivity and material removal we got with those 7 fluters.

Click to expand...

I mostly run prototype parts, in the three to twenty quantity range, so I don't get a lot of tool life data. I did run a couple hundred Ti bone plates a number of months ago, so the tool I have the most data on is the 27287 HEV-R-70500-R.030. I was getting five hours of dynamic roughing at the parameters recommended by the Helical Machining Advisor, even though the setup wasn't as rigid as one might like. I've also found that their 56142 HSV-SR-40250-BN will last until I do something stupid with it. I've probably replaced it three times in five years.

My guestimate is that it would be worth switching to Maritool if the cutters last at least 75% as long, since they're half the price and I'm frequently swapping out tools for different parts anyway. I've found the Helical Machining Advisor to be quite convenient, but I also have an HSM Advisor license, so I can use that for other brands.

dodgin said:

I haven’t run both, but I am curious - if you’re doing a lot of roughing, have you given the 7 flute roughers from Helical a try? We just ran a bunch of 17-4 and 13-8 in H900 condition and I think we’d be hard pressed to find anything that came close to matching the productivity and material removal we got with those 7 fluters.

Click to expand...

I have some 13-8 in a 46rc coming soon .. could you throw some speed and feeds for us
thanks

cmccull166 said:

I have some 13-8 in a 46rc coming soon .. could you throw some speed and feeds for us
thanks

Click to expand...

Which cutter, and how deep can the passes be?

mhajicek said:

Which cutter, and how deep can the passes be?

Click to expand...

I have not ordered EM's yet.. but slotting 3/8 wide 3.00 long 1.5 deep .
my end mill preference has been IMCO but I may go with your experience.
Thank for you imput
Dave

Well, if you go here:
Helical Tool

Pick out a tool for half the depth, then another for the full depth, then go here:
Machining Advisor Pro - MAP It Out - Harvey Performance Company

and plug in your details, it'll give you recommendations. Those numbers should still be close if you go with another brand cutter with the same description.

mutiny said:

Also, a bit of constructive criticism/feedback for MariTool. (Maybe Frank can jump in about this in case I'm spreading misinformation, in which case I apologize ahead of time.) But the MariTool site has seemed to suggest that MariTool is the manufacturer for some tools that pretty clearly have packaging/labeling from others, suggesting that at least some of their product lines are re-sold. I've had pretty good luck with tools actually from MariTool, but slightly less good luck with tools that seem to be from others based on packaging/labeling. This has made me slightly wary of buying new tools from MariTool, because I'm not totally sure if it's actually made by them (who I trust).

Click to expand...

I'm sure Frank will chime in soon, but the answer here (as far as I know) is that Maritool do not make any of their own cutting tools. They are all made by various US based manufacturers to Maritool's specs and then sold by Maritool. I know a lot of their endmills are made by HTC and I believe I've seen labels for drills and reamers made by Morse. Frank and his crew make all of their toolholders in-house though.

I wouldn't even come close to counting any of that as a negative against Maritool. My experience with them has been excellent, I have not had a single issue with any cutting tool I've bought from them.

To answer OP's question: I would definitely recommend trying the Maritool equivalent of the tooling you're using now. I would be very surprised if you're unhappy... I have tried a few other brands of tooling and never got a noticeable increase in tool life, which makes it VERY hard to justify pay 2x or 3x the price for other brands. Not to mention that being able to just go to their website, place an order and then forget about it is a much more pleasant experience than having to deal with a distributor, salespeople or tooling reps.

Honestly looking at other companies where a 1/2" endmill is $90 or more (vs $43 at Maritool), and where you cannot buy direct, I fail to even see why the other companies continue to exist... Who wants to waste time waiting for a quote on tooling when you could just click a mouse a few times and be done???

Harvey Tool are really frustrating for this, they have a great website but I can't just order online. Instead I have to send my 'shopping cart' to a local distributor who will at some point in the next few days take my money and then have Harvey dropship the endmills to me, taking a huge cut for the privilege of wasting my time and not even adding anything valuable in the process.

Btw in regards to high flute count endmills for roughing, Maritool can hook you up there too:

They have 6, 7, and 8 flute 1/2" endmills here:
.500 x 1.25 x 3.0 TiAlN Coated 6 Flute Finisher - Made in USA MariTool
.500 x 1.25 x 3.0 TiAlN Coated 7 Flute Finisher - Made in USA MariTool
.500 x 1.25 x 3.0 TiAlN Coated 8 Flute Finisher - Made in USA MariTool

You can see the full list of high flute count tooling on this page:
5 Flute and Higher Finisher End Mills - MariTool

My personal favourite are these 1/4" 6 flute corner radius endmills that Frank made for me:
.250 x .375 x 2.5 TiAlN Coated 6 Flute Finisher with .060 corner radius MariTool

I use those tools for roughing/finishing A2 tool steel @ 63HRC every day. I use them like a high feed mill when roughing, cutting params are 2500RPM, 72IPM with .1235 WOC and 0.0025 DOC. I cut dry with an air blast and get a tool life of about 480 minutes, and that's after that tool has already done 400 minutes of cutting as a finisher!

For finishing I run a large 'radial' toolpath with a stepover of approximately 0.004", 7500 RPM, 72IPM. DOC of about 0.003" and this is the finish I get:



At this level the weak points are my fixturing and my machine, which is an old 1994 Fadal...

Aaron, what are you using for shipping with Maritool?

I looked at buying some a while ago and it was a big headache to ship to Canada. They would not ship USPS. If I were to ship UPS the shipping/customs charges would eat up pretty much all of the savings. Decided not to bother with it.

mmurray70 said:

Aaron, what are you using for shipping with Maritool?

I looked at buying some a while ago and it was a big headache to ship to Canada. They would not ship USPS. If I were to ship UPS the shipping/customs charges would eat up pretty much all of the savings. Decided not to bother with it.

Click to expand...

Yeah I saw that USPS was not an option for my last order, not sure why they changed that, used to be that USPS was a standard option on the website, maybe Frank will fill us in...

I used UPS for the last order and I always forget how hard they screw you on charges for handling the import... I know that if you have a UPS account a lot of the charges are hugely reduced but I just hate dealing with UPS.

My last order with Maritool was CAD$1317, Import duties were $171, and UPS charged me $101 in 'fees'...

Even with that kinda brutal UPS 'markup' I still haven't found a less expensive source in Canada for tooling... If you have a source you like please let me know!

cmccull166 said:

I have some 13-8 in a 46rc coming soon .. could you throw some speed and feeds for us
thanks

Click to expand...

The numbers we settled on were 275 SFM at .0025 IPT, 6% stepover, length of flute axial. We ran em in shrinks, on 40 taper Haas machines.

mhajicek said:

I mostly run prototype parts, in the three to twenty quantity range, so I don't get a lot of tool life data. I did run a couple hundred Ti bone plates a number of months ago, so the tool I have the most data on is the 27287 HEV-R-70500-R.030. I was getting five hours of dynamic roughing at the parameters recommended by the Helical Machining Advisor, even though the setup wasn't as rigid as one might like. I've also found that their 56142 HSV-SR-40250-BN will last until I do something stupid with it. I've probably replaced it three times in five years.

My guestimate is that it would be worth switching to Maritool if the cutters last at least 75% as long, since they're half the price and I'm frequently swapping out tools for different parts anyway. I've found the Helical Machining Advisor to be quite convenient, but I also have an HSM Advisor license, so I can use that for other brands.

Click to expand...

We ran some of them in 5/8's also but mostly EDP 59429, 1/2 x 1-5/8 Fl, .03R. We're prototype also so I hear you on the tool data stuff, but switching to these saved us a boatload of time...able to push them substantially faster than what we were using. Now, we used 4 fluters on the previous order of the same job, so you might already be achieving some of that with the 7 flutes you're already running.

aarongough said:

Not to mention that being able to just go to their website, place an order and then forget about it is a much more pleasant experience than having to deal with a distributor, salespeople or tooling reps.

Click to expand...

My distributor is Productivity, and I'm setup with their FastTrack Inventory Management System. So I can do just that, log on, click a few tools I want, and then if I didn't need to do it through a PO I could just hit "order", but I have to ask my purchaser to do it on a PO due to our company policy, so then he logs in and orders what's in the cart.

I think I will order a few Maritool cutters and try them out.

aarongough said:

Yeah I saw that USPS was not an option for my last order, not sure why they changed that, used to be that USPS was a standard option on the website, maybe Frank will fill us in...

I used UPS for the last order and I always forget how hard they screw you on charges for handling the import... I know that if you have a UPS account a lot of the charges are hugely reduced but I just hate dealing with UPS.

My last order with Maritool was CAD$1317, Import duties were $171, and UPS charged me $101 in 'fees'...

Even with that kinda brutal UPS 'markup' I still haven't found a less expensive source in Canada for tooling... If you have a source you like please let me know!

Click to expand...

Aaron, you thru alot of cutters surfacing harden steel? I would assume you do...

Have you considered setting up a vending machine? IME those get stocked and taken care of for free. Tool guy shows up once a week, every 2 weeks or whatever you set up, tooling in hand, and re-stocks you. We used Fastenal at a place I worked up north, worked great, no running out of taps or cutters, etc in the middle of a job.

Really, candy bar machines for cutting tools?
What looney nut came up with this idea?

CarbideBob said:

Really, candy bar machines for cutting tools?
What looney nut came up with this idea?

Click to expand...

Iscar/IMC: https://www.ctms-imc.com/index.php/en/home/#

Guhring: Tool Management Systems - GUHRING

Ingersoll: Matrix Tool Storage and Management

Kennametal: ToolBOSS Tool Vending Machines

aarongough said:

I'm sure Frank will chime in soon, but the answer here (as far as I know) is that Maritool do not make any of their own cutting tools. They are all made by various US based manufacturers to Maritool's specs and then sold by Maritool. I know a lot of their endmills are made by HTC and I believe I've seen labels for drills and reamers made by Morse. Frank and his crew make all of their toolholders in-house though.

I wouldn't even come close to counting any of that as a negative against Maritool. My experience with them has been excellent, I have not had a single issue with any cutting tool I've bought from them.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the info! I certainly agree that the tools MariTool sells are of high quality. However, I am finding that they require a lot more experimentation and "dialing in" than picking a single brand and sticking to it. The fact that they may be made by different manufacturers with different grind styles certainly impacts that. This comes back to my original point: everyone's time has some value and I find that I spend less time making Helical tools work well than MariTool tools. However, in some cases, the tradeoff of time for money may very well be worth it.