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Lathe Tool Holders

Johnhudson

Aluminum
Joined
Sep 6, 2016
I got a Mori SL-25 lathe on the way.
Any advice on turning holders
Would be appreciated.
Both turning and drilling.

Thanks in advance.
 
I understanding wanting to be tooled up...but from what I learned. Buy what you need and incur the extra expense of next day RED deliveries over having tooling you just don't use. I bought tools 20 years ago on someones suggestion along with a card of inserts and have yet to go through them.

If you have tooling from other machines...even manuals...it works in CNC's.

All that said, I like CNMG as they face and turn well, quite robust and very popular meaning you can get in every grades with any chip breaker and edge prep. Then again WNMG's give you an extra two edges...but not as robust...but not a slouch either.

Drilling- Indexible drills can reduce time...but so many sizes and configurations I found buy as I need. I like ones that can double as a boring bar. Iscar DR Drill are great, pricy but great. Kyrocera makes a nice line. But again...buy what you need as you need it...sucks to have a 1-1/4" drill that's only 2" depth, but you need to go 3". Buy a 3" depth and the 2" depth is more rigid so it can be run more aggressive.

My thoughts...

For regular drills...I like to hold in collets, ER 32's and 16's over drill chucks or bushings. Tighter with coolant through
 
CNMG 432 x3. DNMG 332. OD groovy. OD top notch. Bars based on known parts, boring and top notch. Drills, a million Drills. Part-off tool. Bar puller. A million soft jaws if you're using a Chuck. Go from there.

R
 
I understanding wanting to be tooled up...but from what I learned. Buy what you need and incur the extra expense of next day RED deliveries over having tooling you just don't use. ...
...


This ^^^ !

But, to get started this is my suggestion:

Don't go the cheap garbage route on CNMG, DNMG, VNMG or WNMG.
Get one of the good brands, but make sure they are in fact a standard. ( Sandvik sucks )
Those are the OD tools and get 2 of each!

Get a decent set of CCMT bars ( 1/4, 3/8, 1/2, 5/8, no need for much bigger ) for ID work.
Get 2 of each.

Get 2 sets of Top Notch holders. They may not be the best for any ( or all ) of the work you do, but you can find just about everything that will fit a TN to get you by.

Get 1 laydown threading holder. ( Sandvik sucks here too )

Get 2 GTN cutoff holders for 3mm inserts. One is to start with, the other is to save your ass when the cutoff shit happens. ( and it will happen )

Drilling, just get 2 sets of ER32 with a shank that fit in your turret. One for spot, the other for drill.
Get 2 sets of ER32 collets! Not1, but 2 !!!

If you have larger boring than 1", then get 3/4 and 1" CNMG boring bars.
Get 2 of each.

For all else that WILL come your way, Red-Brown or Fed-Ex is your best friend.
 
I like Kennametal for insert holders except for parting off, then I go with Iscar.
 
Buy Sandvik if you want to be stuck dealing with one company for all your inserts and parts. Great stuff...but pricey and proprietary...I got locked into their laydown threading tools. That was til I needed an insert for one job. Special was in the mid 20 buck range...but I had to buy a card of 10 and had a Red shipping on top.

Carmex became my new friend.

Good brands of holders.

Iscar
Seco
Tungaloy
Kyrocera
Carmex
Kenametal

Cutoff I found Iscar Tang grip caused me the least amount of problems.

See what your local guys carry, see what deals are offered.
The body can be cheap...the inserts cost.

Biggest thing is don;t get tied to a specific brand when possible. Nice to have choices...with choices comes somewhat reasonable prices.

You'll learn quick...
 
Cheap Chinese shit until you quite breaking them... don't ask me how I know.

The only ones I end up breaking are parting blades from either being too agressive cutting off or trying to get one part too many out of an insert. I probably smoke one of those two sided types every couple of months. That is one item I don't understand the pricing on. A 1/16" thick blade with a slot in each end and they cost $125, they look like they should sell for 1/2 that in my opinion.
 
See what your local guys carry, see what deals are offered.
The body can be cheap...the inserts cost.

Define local. I am in Virginia I don't think there is a full stocking machinist supply store in the whole state. When I was in Cali there was one 10 miles away.
 
+ 1 for Iscar.

I have the same Tang Grip parting blade that I also use for grooving. It is one of the best tools I have.
 
Buy Sandvik if you want to be stuck dealing with one company for all your inserts and parts. Great stuff...but pricey and proprietary...I got locked into their laydown threading tools. That was til I needed an insert for one job. Special was in the mid 20 buck range...but I had to buy a card of 10 and had a Red shipping on top.

It all depends on your Sandvik rep to be honest. Our rep is awesome and pretty flexible.
As for price, Sandvik is pricey yes, but they have damn good tooling, if not the best.
That being said, Carmex isn't a bad choice in my past experience they treated me well.
 
I got a Mori SL-25 lathe on the way.
Any advice on turning holders
Would be appreciated.
Both turning and drilling.

Thanks in advance.

What type of work are you going to be doing on this lathe? Hard to give you recommendations when we don't know the applications.
 
It all depends on your Sandvik rep to be honest. Our rep is awesome and pretty flexible.
As for price, Sandvik is pricey yes, but they have damn good tooling, if not the best.
That being said, Carmex isn't a bad choice in my past experience they treated me well.

True...for me its a couple catalogs from a tool sales places I don't use for anything other then the Sandvik stuff. So its costly over the pricey to begin with. I don't buy alot as its expensive. Like I had said..what acard of inserts cost me I was able to buy a new Carmex tool holder and one insert I needed to do a job, plus a backup as I learned the 1 is none rule early one. For those not familiar, having one insert is like having non as you will lose it, break it or misplace it and have none. Have a backup and the one insert will last forever. Anyway, I bought the holder, two full form inserts and a card of partials for the cost of a 10 pack of the Sandvick. Even if the Sandivk inserts last longer...I can buy more Carmex for less. In truth...If I ran one job always...I'd pay more for Sandvick as their stuff cuts faster and last longer. That means less down time. But I do lots of short runs...most of my tooling gets tweaked in setups and dialing in.

I alluded to that in another post about using a local dealer.

I have a local place that does charge well for much of the items I buy...but I can also call them with a problem and they will get me the right tool for the job along with the people to back it up...saves me in the end. Also on occasion they offer the why that brand, we have been selling these for less and people love 'em.
 
Define local. I am in Virginia I don't think there is a full stocking machinist supply store in the whole state. When I was in Cali there was one 10 miles away.


Good point. My new local guy is now a good 45-60 minutes away in medium to light traffic. He used to swing by every few weeks, but since the move I get a call unless I need something and he gets the ball rolling. Maybe I should have said more of a place that has a good knowledgeable machining person with alot of contacts. One who gets the right info from you and puts the right tools in your hand.
I had started with CNC by calling MSC, great guy that seemed to know it all, made a bunch of recommendations and we bought thinking we'd be tooled up to go. He had me buy Right hand tooling along with Left hand tooling, inverted holders (HAD a VDI machine) Of course every job I ran I needed something I didn't buy and I had a ton of tooling money invested.

Soon I figured what made the most sense and tooled my machine up as I saw the need, researched the tools available and bought what I needed. Took the profit from the job for new tools to make it run better, faster.

A good guy who knows tools can really help dial you in as they have seen alot and not afraid to ask suppliers either when they get stuck.
 
Good point. My new local guy is now a good 45-60 minutes away in medium to light traffic. He used to swing by every few weeks, but since the move I get a call unless I need something and he gets the ball rolling. Maybe I should have said more of a place that has a good knowledgeable machining person with alot of contacts. One who gets the right info from you and puts the right tools in your hand.
I had started with CNC by calling MSC, great guy that seemed to know it all, made a bunch of recommendations and we bought thinking we'd be tooled up to go. He had me buy Right hand tooling along with Left hand tooling, inverted holders (HAD a VDI machine) Of course every job I ran I needed something I didn't buy and I had a ton of tooling money invested.

Soon I figured what made the most sense and tooled my machine up as I saw the need, researched the tools available and bought what I needed. Took the profit from the job for new tools to make it run better, faster.

A good guy who knows tools can really help dial you in as they have seen alot and not afraid to ask suppliers either when they get stuck.

My issue with not having a local place is owning a Swiss which has over head gang tooling and is a 12mm punched out to 16mm. There is very little clearance between tool positions and there are extremely limited travels for clearing the stock when changing tool positions, even if you adjust parameters and other settings to use the extreme mechanical limits of the machine. Sometimes I just need to hold the tool holder in my hand with a set of calipers and look at it from all angles to see if it can fit or be made to fit with a few alterations. It is a rarity when the specification drawing of a tool holder is complete enough to know everything I need to know to be positive if a tool holder will work on that machine. I wish I could get my hands on the drawings that they manufactured the insert holders with.
 
good thread! maybe it should be a sticky? (needs a better title tho, something like "basic set of lathe tooling and inserts" or "general purpose CNC lathe tooling kit, tool holders and inserts")
 








 
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