Ultra-Dex drills and inserts questions..........

I'm looking a coupla Ultra-Dex drills..............Their prices are great. I've seen a few comments here on PM that they are a good value. What about the inserts? I have never dealt with WCMX style inserts before. I can buy Ultra-Dex brand....are they any good? What other major players out there make em' too? TIA..................

I've never tried their drills,but I also haven't heard any bad things about them. And they're Made in the USA.
I do know that the Kyocera Magic Drills are insane for drilling on lathes.
Kyocera Carbide Inserts Toolholders Boring Bars Milling Cutters Solid Carbide Drills

I've got a number of Ultra-dex drills. I'm pretty happy with them. They may not perform as well as a sandvik, or the Kyocera's mentioned above, but for the money, they work quite well. the inserts are not bad either. Good price, and I think they break up chips pretty decently. I'm mostly cutting aluminum and 1018 cold roll, so I'm not exactly challenging things a whole lot. Seems to be a good bargain. Never tried other brands for inserts in the ultradex though.

if you dont need the near 180* flat bottom I'd pass and get a replaceable tip drill. They work way better IMHO and dont have to deal with little screws and small inserts

I have also been checking out their drills, would like to try them in the near future. I spoke with a friend of mine who uses them, he told me the Kyocera wcmx inserts fit the ultradex drills, but not the other way around. Since he has some of each brand drill, he just gets the kyocera inserts. I don't have first hand experience with this but something to keep in mind. Might be other options also, I see Sandvik makes wcmx also.

dstryr said:

if you dont need the near 180* flat bottom I'd pass and get a replaceable tip drill. They work way better IMHO and dont have to deal with little screws and small inserts

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True...............but I need an 1 3/4"Ø and a 2"Ø drill........................

Kapster said:

...... I spoke with a friend of mine who uses them, he told me the Kyocera wcmx inserts fit the ultradex drills, but not the other way around. ......

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Weird eh?
Almost like Kyocera wanted to lock you into only buying inserts from them.
( I don't think this was the original intent, it just turned out that way)

Most WCMX drills are the same layout. It's a very old design. The inserts that go into them can vary widely in cutting action and life.
As with all tool bodies material and quality can vary.
U-dex is a good source that has been around for a while and is a very nice sized and quality shop so no worries there. As good as it gets, on the same level with any of the bigger names.
They started out after leaving another blueprint special toolholder local shop in the late 80's and have built quite a nice operation.
They did light up the main building once but that "oh-poop" actually turned out not so bad.

Catalog standard WCMX inserts from around the world should fit in a U-dex drill if you want to play with grades and chipbreakers.

Understand that I love to hate these guys and should never have given them the opening into my local market so a recommendation does not come easy or lightly.... yet they are damn good and all steel made right here in town.
Bob

david n said:

True...............but I need an 1 3/4"Ø and a 2"Ø drill........................

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Or Allied gen2 spade drills, nice for job shop work as a drill shank covers a range of sizes by changing the insert. There is better drilling tools out there but the value is hard to beat, depending on your needs.

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Just so you know Kyocera came out with an update of their DRZ drill which is pretty popular called the DRV. I went to a training that talked about it seemed like they added a few interesting features. Like they went to the Sandvik, Seco, Walter model of using different substrates for the peripheral & center insert.

That said they are on promo 2019 Winter / Spring Promo Pack

The promo is up to 1.25" diameterd but if you let me know what you want I can get you a similar deal. Or probably someone local to you can.

I know these aren't WCMX drills but I thought you might be interested due to the promo.

Komet & Walter also make a wide variety of WCMX inserts. I have a customer that swears by the Komet brand.

WCMX insert drills are very old technology and have very real short comings compared to modern drills.

The biggest issue with them is that insert failures are almost always catastrophic. They are the reason for the whole "insert drill welded into the bottom of the hole" FUD that people have.

Modern drills, especially those with asymmetric inserts, handle failures much more gracefully, and perform much better too.

That said, if you're working with easy materials they're probably fine.

David, it would be my recommendation to look at another brand drill, just based on performance & longevity. While these cheaper indexable drills are tempting because of the low cost of the drill body, they are a fool's bargain in the long-term.

A modern drill from Seco, Sandvik etc. will be miles ahead in the long run. The bodies will be more durable, the inserts will be higher performing and more durable as well, and insert life will be absurd compared to WCMX offerings.

My personal recommendations from time in the shop, and on the road selling (back in the shop now BTW...) would be the Seco Perfomax, Sandvik 880 drills as 1st choice. If you buy either of these, jump on PM when you've gone through your first box each of inner/outer inserts. It will be months, and probably miles of drilling-life later... No joke... If your lathe is in good mechanical alignment, these drills will be the most trouble-free tools you'll probably ever buy...

If you wanted a lower cost option, Mitsubishi's MVX and Kyocera's DRV line look promising, and look to have "borrowed" a lot of features from the Seco/Sandivk drills.


I would strongly caution against using an allied spade drill at these diameters, unless there is a clearly unavoidable case for them. Tool-life costs will be remarkably high compared to an indexable drill, and they are usually much slower. Those who point out that multiple-diameter tips can be used in these, should also remember that a modern indexable drill can drill off-center, bore, and even helix-drill if a larger diameter is needed.






In short - If you spend the money on a "premium" indexable drill, you'll soon be glad that you did, and for a long time too...

I use Ultra-Dex's all the time here, I would recommend you get ones out of the PD line-up that use rhombus shaped inserts rather than the WCMX, the WCMX inserts are too thin and break easily. I use ones out of the PD line-up to cut Aluminum Stainless and Haynes 25(CoNiCr). The speeds and feeds they recommend in thier catalog work really well. But again avoid the WCMX ones like the plague, I have one here that I braised and re-worked the pocket back on after the insert failed catastrophically.

The PD drill line are a whole different animal than the cheaper ones, and are more expensive. The only issue I've had with them is the plating flaking off on the shank side and give me some grief coming out of a tool holder, but someone had gone ape shit tightening it.

Jashley73 said:

Those who point out that multiple-diameter tips can be used in these, should also remember that a modern indexable drill can drill off-center, bore, and even helix-drill if a larger diameter is needed.

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you got me there, good point. So in a mill you could circular interpolate with one of these to get a different size hole?

I spoke with Seco about their performax drill and was told you need a different drill for rotating tool(mill) and rotating work(lathe). Whats the deal with that? We need versatility in our tooling, although I suspect it wasn't as big a deal as he made it out to be?

Kapster said:

you got me there, good point. So in a mill you could circular interpolate with one of these to get a different size hole?

I spoke with Seco about their performax drill and was told you need a different drill for rotating tool(mill) and rotating work(lathe). Whats the deal with that? We need versatility in our tooling, although I suspect it wasn't as big a deal as he made it out to be?

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Its tough to recommend that you use an indexable drill to interpolate, but yes, a short one in a rigid machine will do it.

Regarding different drills for lathes, it's not a big deal. Seco's indexable drills with a common cylindrical shank will have one flat on the shank, and a part-number endi g in "R7" I believe. They recommend using a "R7-C" drill for use in lathes - the -C suffix means that the drill is given 4 flats on the shank, allowing you to rotate the drill as needed in your tool block on the lathe. It's really not a big deal. You could get by with either drill in any machine.

Jashley73 said:

Its tough to recommend that you use an indexable drill to interpolate, but yes, a short one in a rigid machine will do it.

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I have successfully helical'd a 41mm hole with a 38mm drill at 5xD in 7075T6. Slow, came out great. I don't know that I'd want to try it in steel...

gregormarwick said:

I have successfully helical'd a 41mm hole with a 38mm drill at 5xD in 7075T6. Slow, came out great. I don't know that I'd want to try it in steel...

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You'd probably be OK with a 2xD, maybe 3xD drill in a short holder, in a 50-taper mill... I wouldn't try it with a 4xD drill, and probably nothing bigger than 1.25" in a 40-taper, and definitely with a short holder...

Kapster said:

I spoke with Seco about their performax drill and was told you need a different drill for rotating tool(mill) and rotating work(lathe). Whats the deal with that? We need versatility in our tooling, although I suspect it wasn't as big a deal as he made it out to be?

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I use our Ultra Dex Drills on both mill and lathe, Its best in the lathe to run with the outer drill insert oriented like a boring bar. I take advantage of this and always run my drills a little off center .005 or so to cut large so if the worst should happen it will be easier to remove. I also use the Drills as boring bars to rough on occasion. The ultra dexs come with 1/8th NPT tapped both on the back of the shank on center line and out the side up front which makes it super convenient to use on either set-up for through coolant.

I

gregormarwick said:

I have successfully helical'd a 41mm hole with a 38mm drill at 5xD in 7075T6. Slow, came out great. I don't know that I'd want to try it in steel...

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I would LOVE to see the code or a video of that!Never thought about helical drill paths!

Short video of the Seco drill doing helical interpolation. 32mm hole with a 30mm drill in steel.

YouTube



And another video showing off a little bit. I forgot about the plunge milling and angled entry/cross-hole drilling capabilities too...

YouTube

doug925 said:

I would LOVE to see the code or a video of that!Never thought about helical drill paths!

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There's nothing special about the code, certainly nothing entertaining about a video!

An indexable drill is effectively just a single flute endmill that only cuts on the bottom.

The code I used was just a simple helical plunge, with the helical pitch set to the normal linear feed per rev that I would use for the drill, and the actual path feedrate as high as I could get away with, was like 2000mm/m or something.