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Tooling Vendor Suggestions

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metalmadness

Hot Rolled
Joined
Nov 25, 2015
Good afternoon,

I am always looking to check out new vendors for tooling. In my experience, Helical Solutions and Harvey Tool have been foundational suppliers for us for several years. The main reasons are several:

1: Extremely diverse selection of tools - specifically long reach necked endmills with varying corner profiles and ball options
2: Fast delivery
3: Easy to navigate site and catalog
4: They perform excellently

Are there any similar vendors who carry such a range of tools that are good as well? We do a lot of deep pocket applications so that is a key metric I want to keep in mind.

YG1 is another that is good but doesn't have the range of options for all our applications. Also their catalog sucks.

Do you have any experience doing custom ground tools? How did that go?

Another question about Harvey Group - they ahve recently acquired Micro100 and TitanUSA. Anyone have experience with those? I have used Micro100 occasionally for turning stuff and it seems pretty great.
 
We use almost every brand under the sun. The trick is figuring out the strengths and weaknesses of each. I can't think of a single banner that I would recommend for everything. Well, maybe Sandvik, if you had unlimited money.

Harvey extended micro tools absolutely suck FWIW. We use OSG or MITGI when lead time permits.
 
I work for a vendor that starts with K and will be the first to say we don't have everything you will need... That said, we do have a lot, and as far as custom endmills and whatnot, I find we can still be pretty competitive if you need enough of them and can wait our normal lead times. Your local guys are good folks (I used to work for the same manager as them) and would be happy to see where we could save you some money or solve some performance problems you may be experiencing.

Happy hunting. My suggestion is to find a tool rep that you like and can trust and use/abuse him. If you don't think he is providing you value when you buy what he suggests, he isn't doing the job management has set him out to do. We may not have the cheapest tool, but hopefully we can point you toward a tool that provides you more value than what you were going to use.
 
As someone else said, everyone has strengths and weaknesses.

Mitsubishi makes absolutely amazing solid carbide gun drills and micro endmills (like .3, .4, .5mm). I've never used their bigger stuff, I'm sure it's great. They just introduced a line of Off the Shelf micro (1/8" and smaller) high performance drills that I'm looking forward to trying. But, with Mits, (as with most) you PAY for the quality.

For affordable drilling in a variety of materials and applications, you can't beat MA Ford. They do custom/form tools also, just not as quickly.

For very high performance drilling in difficult to machine materials, especially at high LxD ratios, you can't beat Mikron crazy drills. Their Crazy Mill line is also amazing at very small diameters (Crazy Mill Cool is coolant through, and I've used them down to like .030" diameter).

Ceratizit (who you may have never heard of, but they supply a large amount of carbide to other manufacturers) will do custom tooling and they're currently beating a couple of my suppliers on price, delivery, and performance. They also stock a full line of ISO/ANSI turning inserts in carbide and PCD, with very good price/performance.

The Harvey and Helical stuff, in my experience has gone downhill in quality, but is still good, and you can't beat their selection of in stock items. You may want to look into Core Cutter, the new company founded by the guy who used to own Helical. The quality seems to have followed him there.

Micro100 is good for small turning stuff, but the flats on the boring bars vs a holder that indexes the bar is a weak point (this has been addressed with their new quick change line that orients the bar to the flat on the holder, but this is a relatively new line for them).

For REALLY small turning/boring you cannot beat Horn USA (Most people incorrectly refer to them as PH Horn) with a stick. Indexable boring/turning/grooving/threading/broaching/trepanning inserts that all fit the same holder, and when cleaned and indexed properly repeat within a couple tenths in X and Z. What's not to love?

For high performance custom carbide round tooling, if you can afford it, Schwanog (yes, THAT Schwanog) will make amazing form tools and drills. They can even do inserted form tools and drills for production runs.

For the FASTEST custom carbide tooling, go to MITGI, I can get turnaround on coated custom tools in less than a week, most of the time (I dunno if they do that for everyone). They do everything from custom boring bars to form tools to micro drills to reamers to saws to... You name it, they can make it.

Pan American Tool has made me custom carbide reamers in the past that worked just fine, for a surprisingly low price, but the lead time was a little long.

For custom threading/grooving inserts, I don't think you can beat ThinBit in terms of delivery/price, but I don't really like their holders.

Schwanog also makes custom form inserts and holders, for turning multiple features on a part at once.

For fast turn around custom form inserts, GWS does a good job (They acquired the company formerly known as Carbide Grinding, Inc). I use them sometimes to get inserts that fit Sandvik quick change holders.

For custom saws/key cutters/dovetail cutters, Robb Jack and Internal Tool are hard to beat for price/performance ratio.

For knurling, I don't think I'd even look at anyone but Accu-Track.

For broaching, Polygon Solutions can't be beat for customer service and quick delivery, but I find Acu-Grind beats them on performance (only slightly), and is also awesome to deal with.

I've even had the big boys (Sandvik, Iscar, Mitsubishi, Mikron, Horn, NTK) make me custom form tools, but they're all so large that customs are a small part of their business, and they're usually less responsive and lead times are terrible (I've had orders go out 18+ weeks and then get canceled).


That's all I've got off the top of my head, I haven't even had coffee yet. If you have more specific questions, I'll try to answer them.
 
Oh, Atom drill out of Japan makes good performance tiny drills, and stocks a lot of them. NS Tool also makes small high performance drills, and they're distributed by Mikron now.

Kyocera makes amazing circuitboard drills, for CHEAP (like $5 each cheap).

I'll update as I think of things...
 
Maritool will do customs. I had some small tapered endmills made that were an angle Harvey didn't stock. Took I think 2-3 weeks, but they were cheaper than the comparable Harvey's and performed great.
 
TeachMePlease said:
As someone else said, everyone has strengths and weaknesses.

Mitsubishi makes absolutely amazing solid carbide gun drills and micro endmills (like .3, .4, .5mm). I've never used their bigger stuff, I'm sure it's great. They just introduced a line of Off the Shelf micro (1/8" and smaller) high performance drills that I'm looking forward to trying. But, with Mits, (as with most) you PAY for the quality.

For affordable drilling in a variety of materials and applications, you can't beat MA Ford. They do custom/form tools also, just not as quickly.

For very high performance drilling in difficult to machine materials, especially at high LxD ratios, you can't beat Mikron crazy drills. Their Crazy Mill line is also amazing at very small diameters (Crazy Mill Cool is coolant through, and I've used them down to like .030" diameter).

Ceratizit (who you may have never heard of, but they supply a large amount of carbide to other manufacturers) will do custom tooling and they're currently beating a couple of my suppliers on price, delivery, and performance. They also stock a full line of ISO/ANSI turning inserts in carbide and PCD, with very good price/performance.

The Harvey and Helical stuff, in my experience has gone downhill in quality, but is still good, and you can't beat their selection of in stock items. You may want to look into Core Cutter, the new company founded by the guy who used to own Helical. The quality seems to have followed him there.

Micro100 is good for small turning stuff, but the flats on the boring bars vs a holder that indexes the bar is a weak point (this has been addressed with their new quick change line that orients the bar to the flat on the holder, but this is a relatively new line for them).

For REALLY small turning/boring you cannot beat Horn USA (Most people incorrectly refer to them as PH Horn) with a stick. Indexable boring/turning/grooving/threading/broaching/trepanning inserts that all fit the same holder, and when cleaned and indexed properly repeat within a couple tenths in X and Z. What's not to love?

For high performance custom carbide round tooling, if you can afford it, Schwanog (yes, THAT Schwanog) will make amazing form tools and drills. They can even do inserted form tools and drills for production runs.

For the FASTEST custom carbide tooling, go to MITGI, I can get turnaround on coated custom tools in less than a week, most of the time (I dunno if they do that for everyone). They do everything from custom boring bars to form tools to micro drills to reamers to saws to... You name it, they can make it.

Pan American Tool has made me custom carbide reamers in the past that worked just fine, for a surprisingly low price, but the lead time was a little long.

For custom threading/grooving inserts, I don't think you can beat ThinBit in terms of delivery/price, but I don't really like their holders.

Schwanog also makes custom form inserts and holders, for turning multiple features on a part at once.

For fast turn around custom form inserts, GWS does a good job (They acquired the company formerly known as Carbide Grinding, Inc). I use them sometimes to get inserts that fit Sandvik quick change holders.

For custom saws/key cutters/dovetail cutters, Robb Jack and Internal Tool are hard to beat for price/performance ratio.

For knurling, I don't think I'd even look at anyone but Accu-Track.

For broaching, Polygon Solutions can't be beat for customer service and quick delivery, but I find Acu-Grind beats them on performance (only slightly), and is also awesome to deal with.

I've even had the big boys (Sandvik, Iscar, Mitsubishi, Mikron, Horn, NTK) make me custom form tools, but they're all so large that customs are a small part of their business, and they're usually less responsive and lead times are terrible (I've had orders go out 18+ weeks and then get canceled).


That's all I've got off the top of my head, I haven't even had coffee yet. If you have more specific questions, I'll try to answer them.
Click to expand...

Wow really great thanks for that detailed response!

I have plenty of experience with Mitsubishi Carbide but have historically ONLY used their solid carbide drills and gundrills. I will have to look into them for some other cutters.

I definitely will take a look at some of the suggestions.
 
mhajicek said:
Maritool will do customs. I had some small tapered endmills made that were an angle Harvey didn't stock. Took I think 2-3 weeks, but they were cheaper than the comparable Harvey's and performed great.
Click to expand...

Good to know, I feel like Frank is always willing to do something for a customer. I wanted some custom shrinker holders that he can;t do now but will hopefully get around to it.
 
boosted said:
We use almost every brand under the sun. The trick is figuring out the strengths and weaknesses of each. I can't think of a single banner that I would recommend for everything. Well, maybe Sandvik, if you had unlimited money.

Harvey extended micro tools absolutely suck FWIW. We use OSG or MITGI when lead time permits.
Click to expand...

Not sure I agree with you on their micro extended tools. How micro we talking? I've had solid luck down to 0.02 extended reach tools.

I do agree with your statement about finding strengths and weaknesses though. I doubt anyone would sit and argue that Harvey/Helical is the best carbide tooling supplier out there, but they do make some good stuff. I like Maritool as well but they don't have everything.

Thanks for the tips
 
huskermcdoogle said:
I work for a vendor that starts with K and will be the first to say we don't have everything you will need... That said, we do have a lot, and as far as custom endmills and whatnot, I find we can still be pretty competitive if you need enough of them and can wait our normal lead times. Your local guys are good folks (I used to work for the same manager as them) and would be happy to see where we could save you some money or solve some performance problems you may be experiencing.

Happy hunting. My suggestion is to find a tool rep that you like and can trust and use/abuse him. If you don't think he is providing you value when you buy what he suggests, he isn't doing the job management has set him out to do. We may not have the cheapest tool, but hopefully we can point you toward a tool that provides you more value than what you were going to use.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the tips. I actually fell out of using our "K company rep" because he was absolutely useless. As in, I would submit RFQs and they would just sit in email purgatory. So eventually I just started side stepping them and paying list through our distributor.

Do you have a local CO rep you could DM me the info for?
 
Heres whats weve been using, seems to work for us.

OSG - Carbon Steels, alum
Titan - Good GP endmills
SGS Z Carb Stainless, Incos, Exotics - awesome endmills and well priced
Kennametal Harvi same applications as SGS, a little pricey but you get what you pay for
Gorrilla mill - OK, use when they are on sale from our vendor. prefer SGS
Anything owned by harvey is good, micro, helical, titan

Been on the kyocera/sgs band wagobn lately, we love there raptor feed indexable endmils and the cermet TPGH boring inserts in carbon steels have produced the best results we've seen in 1018 finish wise.
 
The vast majority of end mills in my drawers are Fraisa, OSG, or Helical.

I really like the performance of the Fraisa stuff, very good process reliability and they have a great set of tools for cutting parameters. Unfortunately you pay out the nose for it. OSG is super solid all around. I used to like Helical a lot more, but I feel like their quality has slipped a little — still fine, but nowadays I mostly use them for the super long reach stuff. And their chamfer mills, the HPCM series is still the best I’ve found.

If I was going to try one more it would probably be SwiftCarb, but I am pretty much all metric now.

For form tools (dovetails, Picatinny rails, etc) I really like AB Tools. They’re great.

OSG or Walter or Guhring for drills, OSG for form taps.
 
metalmadness said:
Wow really great thanks for that detailed response!

I have plenty of experience with Mitsubishi Carbide but have historically ONLY used their solid carbide drills and gundrills. I will have to look into them for some other cutters.

I definitely will take a look at some of the suggestions.
Click to expand...


For stainless (303, 304, 17-4 H900), you can't beat Mitsubishi's VP10RT grade. At least, for what I do (Swiss machining)... I have to assume the durability translates to the larger inserts most people use.
 
metalmadness said:
Not sure I agree with you on their micro extended tools. How micro we talking? I've had solid luck down to 0.02 extended reach tools.
Click to expand...


Not even sure it's up for debate. The Harveys work in a pinch, but an equivalent LXD from almost anybody else will work better. Our MITGI endmills that are a direct swap can take way more engagement with much less babysitting.

The smallest I have in the library is a .005in, but we use .015 -.030 pretty frequently.

Just pickup a random harvey and look at the grind quality of the shank and relief... They have an amazing inventory, but the quality is iffy.
 
boosted said:
Not even sure it's up for debate. The Harveys work in a pinch, but an equivalent LXD from almost anybody else will work better. Our MITGI endmills that are a direct swap can take way more engagement with much less babysitting.

The smallest I have in the library is a .005in, but we use .015 -.030 pretty frequently.

Just pickup a random harvey and look at the grind quality of the shank and relief... They have an amazing inventory, but the quality is iffy.
Click to expand...



I ordered one of the 3fl .001" endmills from Harvey just to say I have one :D
 
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