Where is the best place to buy tooling I have worked in production shops and rand a small pump repair shop and I always ordered indexable tooling for my machines but now that I have my home shop tooling is very expensive and was looking into making my own tooling but have never fooled with it i want to get some hss and learn to grind my own tooling ... money is a issue since it is my money I am spending and I make no profit from my home shop just looking for any tips on a inexpensive set up and what kind of rocks to buy any help is appreciated hoping to get some advice from the old timers!
HSS-Cobalt-Stellite can save you a ton, but only in cash.
You'll have to substitute TIME, and rather a lot OF it, both as to preparing and maintaining the tooling, and time in the cut.
Face it - that's why "expensive" insertable Carbides took over in "revenue" work. They ended up CHEAPER.
For fiddle-farting about, SHAPING the blank needs 30 and 60 grit grey ALOX, historically. I am not up to speed on Zirconia.
Fine-tuning ABC (anything but Carbides) wants a finer white wheel, plus a diamond wheel, AND not hand-finish with diamond "stone" as mostly all you'll do is f**k up the crucial edge geometry.
Key is to NOT thermally-shock the ultimate edge. Nano-fractures and rapid breakdown the all-too-common result.
Getting it "passable" wants a 60/30 double-ender for rough shaping, cheap is OK.
The big gain as to long-serving finish wants a much BETTER spindle and accurate angle-holding reliability.
And that was for simple-dumb single-point LATHE tools!
Milling cutters? A proper Tool and Cutter grinder, no substitutes for it.
WISER to send them TF out to he who has such, if only because they have all the wheels and holders and, and, and.. also know how to USE all that.
I don't have enough years left
on-planet to learn what michiganbuck, cash, Carbide Bob, and MANY others, just on PM alone, have known for SCORES OF YEARS already about grinding.
It is their rice bowl, not mine, and the learning curve and costs are too steep for too seldom needed application by my way of measuring.
I make only the lathe tools, "on principle", the D drills and reamers only for my
odd-size needs, ELSE never.
I don't mess
at all with annular cutters, milling cutters nor endmills, nor actually even all that often with twist drills or any OTHER sort of drill. Plenty of new or as-new stocks out there cheap. Plenty of LIFE in the absolute best of store-bought as makes if come out "cheap" over the longer span of use.
YMMV but if grinding is not a "career" in its own right, it could easily become so and suck as much
time as money clear out of the room.
Hiring it done can be cheaper, ELSE just don't go there atall.
Most realistic smallholder tooling isn't that hard nor expensive to ship out and back.
Smaller goods are cheaper to just buy than to sharpen.