What's new
What's new

Kennametal indexable lathe tooling material, what's it made from

plastikdreams

Diamond
Joined
May 31, 2011
Location
upstate nj
We have a bunch of never used kennametal indexable lathe tools with inserts here so I decided to make use of them rather then order all new stuff. They are 1.000 size so I had to cut a little over .300 off to fit our aloris bxa holders. I cut the first one on a bridgeport and it worked but ended up wiring the other 4. So I have 4 pieces that were cut off, I'm thinking of making spacers/paralles with them. The material isn't hardened but cuts like tool steel. I'm wondering what steel it actually is so I can see if they can be hardened (not the tools the remnants).
 
Cheap hardenable TOUGH steel = 1045

Would be my guess

Yes, hardenable like other medium carbon steels

This does not mean its easy to get to 60 Rc - need more carbon or alloy content for that - which of course costs more
 
how about making tools from a known steel.

Seeing as these are just some random pieces I'd rather put them to use rather than scrap them. I have plenty of o1 laying around but I'm not looking to make something from nothing.

Cheap hardenable TOUGH steel = 1045

Would be my guess

Yes, hardenable like other medium carbon steels

This does not mean its easy to get to 60 Rc - need more carbon or alloy content for that - which of course costs more

So you think the tools are 1045 or are you suggesting 1045 to be used?

____________

All I'm looking for is what the indexable tool holder is made from. If I was going to be making a project to make parallels and harden I would use a tool steel such as o1 or a2 which I have on the shelf.
 
"how about making tools from a known steel."

you say you've O-1 , but you are willing to ht, temper , and grind to size ...parallels and
gages from a mystery metal.... could be 1045 , 4140 , or just cased 1018 .

sounds like you've already made the decision.

let us know how it turns out....
 
"how about making tools from a known steel."

you say you've O-1 , but you are willing to ht, temper , and grind to size ...parallels and
gages from a mystery metal.... could be 1045 , 4140 , or just cased 1018 .

sounds like you've already made the decision.

let us know how it turns out....

I'm pretty much going to use them as spacers for whatever there's nothing precision about it, I have parallel sets for that. I'm not sure where the Gage thing comes from, these are just going to be knockaround pieces. Like when I need a bit more height on the strap jacks or I need some height in the wire or I need to span the slots in a table.

But I will let you know how they work out :)
 
4140 and then heat treated is the go to for lathe holders. I have seen specs in the high 40s to 50 but this is rare.
There are lathe holders that are 4142 (4140 pre-hard) but to most toolholder people this is the "bottom of the barrel" stuff.

Milling cutters tend to be pre-hard due to distortion in heat treat. You sometimes chrome plate or nitrite them for chip wash resistance since they are so darn soft.
The difference here between milling and single point tools is processing. Things warp in heat treat.
Bringing a single point pocket back in where it belongs is easy, a milling cutter requires recutting all the pockets and you just don't want to do that.

8620 and other 8000 variants where used as a standard a ways back in time on milling cutters when holder prices where higher.
It is still done on premium custom holders.

I only know enough here to be dangerous, I do most certainly warmly welcome other's views or experiences.
Bob
 
All I know is that a file will cut it easily. I haven't found a Rockwell tester yet, but I know it's somewhere lol. I'm in the tool room, buried in one of 4 casting buildings, I'll find it eventually. Maybe I should have the pieces zygloed and x rayed to set tnmg's mind at ease. :D

I'd take pics but they will fire you for that.

Thanks for all the info guys!
 
I should have the pieces zygloed and x rayed to set tnmg's mind at ease.

There are devices that do a surface scan and tell you chemical/elemental content - including Carbon - maybe XRF or the like - found at scrap yards that are actually interested in WHAT metal they have
 
I'm very surprised that you say they weren't hardened. I've made a few of my own micro indexable toolholders for tiny boring work and used old crashed indexable lathe tool shanks from Kennametal and Valenite for material. They were through hardened to a pretty good level, I'd estimate at least the mid-40's Rc.
 
Interesting, that would be case hardenable. I may just leave it in it's current state and just use em. Hardening isn't a make or break thing with this as it's just a BS side project.

Doug is just checking if he should send you to a hobby site, haha. There's no such thing as 8620 pre-hard. Sounds like you may already know this since you mentioned case hardening but at 0.20% carbon, 8620 isn't able to harden with a normal quench heat treat. It's usually case hardened. Stay tuned for the link, lol.
 
There are devices that do a surface scan and tell you chemical/elemental content - including Carbon - maybe XRF or the like - found at scrap yards that are actually interested in WHAT metal they have

We have that here too, I'm not too concerned at this point I've had other stuff to worry about here. For some reason the wax operators like to break stuff and the engineers like to modify stuff.
 
Doug is just checking if he should send you to a hobby site, haha. There's no such thing as 8620 pre-hard. Sounds like you may already know this since you mentioned case hardening but at 0.20% carbon, 8620 isn't able to harden with a normal quench heat treat. It's usually case hardened. Stay tuned for the link, lol.

Not much of a hobby machinist, I make, fix, and modify molds and fixtures for wax patterns and castings for turbine blades and shrouds.
 








 
Back
Top