What's in your tooling inventory for mill and lathe work?

Feel free to skip this entire paragraph if needed, it's just background info on why I'm asking the numbered questions below.

I'm simply an enthusiast at this point and I love cars in particula, but I want to make machining and cars my two primary hobbies as I grow older, wiser, and hopefully wealthier. Why couldn't I select some cheaper hobbies, right? I guess my dream one day sometime during my 50's/60's would be owning my own custom detached garage and shop next to my home, or perhaps a leased space somewhere close to home, with all of the machines, equipment, tooling, tools, knowledge, time, and general capabilities to combine my passions of machining and cars into one project of a lifetime, which would generally involve designing and fabricating a fully customized track car. Since I'm not the most artistically talented guy, the actual aesthetical design would be outsourced and I would hire an engineer to approve my final plans to ensure the structure is strong enough and safe, but from that point on, it would be entirely on me to take on this project, which would likely take years to complete.

So, enough about me. I imagine most machinists are organized, and if I had a shop of any size, I'd keep a pretty accurate inventory of the tooling I have onhand for mill and lathe work. For example, drill bits, end mills, hole saws, fly cutters, taps, reamers, boring bars, thread cutting tools, homemade tools for cutting specific angles, and the list goes on and on.

If anyone would be willing to list the following information, I'd be very grateful (and there's no problem if you only want to respond to one of the four points versus all 4, any info will be helpful to me and hopefully others reading this). Plus, if you love tooling, this is your thread to openly brag about it.

1. A list of your tooling on hand, with as much detail as possible if you have it written into a spreadsheet already as an example. This would include stuff such as diameter, cutting angle, length, type of cutter/tool, roughing versus finishing, number of flutes, material (tool steel, carbide?), hardened/annealed, inserts used with the given insert holder, and any other relevant details you have.

2. A brief description of the amount of work you perform with this tooling inventory. Brand new hobbyist, established hobbyist, small professional job shop, large shop, etc.

3. The tooling you're looking to buy in the short-term or a general wish list of tooling you'd like to purchase to round out your capabilities.

4. An entirely optional bit of information, which would be a very general estimate of the investment made for your current inventory.

Thank you for any replies, as I truly appreciate a peak into your shop. This will help me plan going into the future and give me a better overall sense of the investment I'll need to make someday in the future.

most businesses buy stuff based on payback within reasonable amount of time (2 to 5 years). that is you dont buy $1000's of stuff that will takes decades to pay for itself.
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too often adults are buying and playing with adult toys for amusement and end up with little savings for retirement or job loss. its usually recommended to have a years salary in the bank at the very least. too many live pay check to pay check

Is this a test; are we being graded on this? Not fair i didn’t bring my number 2 pencil


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Machinery and tooling always follow the work.

Pick out something you want to make and buy the machinery and tooling to do that job correctly.

Make something else. Buy the machinery and tooling to do this job. There will be things from the first job that you can use.

Repeat this a couple hundred times and you will have a well equipet shop for the work you do.

Every shop is different. To think that somebody can tell you what to buy to set up a shop for what you want to do just shows how little you know about metalworking. It takes years to collect machinery and tooling to do what you want to do.

'' What's in your tooling inventory for mill and lathe work? ''

None of your business.

Limy Sami said:

'' What's in your tooling inventory for mill and lathe work? ''

None of your business.

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I have a feeling here that if we were to respond with lists of tooling, we would get a large number of ad suggestions for our next purchase from Amazon, Google or Harbor Freight.

Sami, I don't know whether they have a Fifth Amendment in the UK, but we do on this side of the pond. When it comes to tooling, I'm pleading the Fifth. If my wife ever finds out how much money I've "wasted" on tooling, I'm sunk. LOL.

Its about impossible to do what you’re thinking you are going to do. As noted above, tooling follows the work, so beyond having the basics on hand I’d suggest this:

For a lathe, right and left turning tools, a few boring bars, cut off tool. Plenty of inserts for all in some general purpose grade and a dozen or so pieces of HSS blanks to grind custom tools. Tool post and holders for all. 4 and 3 jaw chucks.

For a mill, end mill holder set, end mills in various sizes, a drill chuck, work clamping tools, a vise.

Generally needed are measuring instruments such as mics, calipers depth gages, thread gages, indicators and stands and a place to keep all your gear. Buy way more tool chest space than you think you will need.

After you get started, buy as you need per project.

PS: I have way more money in tooling than in the cost of machines. Eventually you will too.

After working as a tool and diemaker for a couple of decades and seeing retirement on the horizon I decided to start buying some machines for a home shop. I bought a mill and a lathe, two very common machines to start out with. A friend of mine told me that I had it backwards. That I should first get the jobs and then decide what machines and tooling that I needed. I told him that if someone comes to me with a job they probably wouldn't like waiting for me to get set up to do it so I went ahead and bought the mill and lathe.

Started buying tooling. Vise for the mill. I already had basic stuff like drill bits, taps, some reamers, center drills, countersinks.

As I needed other tooling I bought it. Boring heads for the mill. Drill chucks in different sizes. Boring bars. Insert tooling. I was getting some interest after I retired and the word got around that I had machines and knew how to use them. A friend of mine had screwed up an original Harley panhead crandcase and asked me if I fix it. I did. Another friend who restores and repairs old tractors asked me if I could repair a hole that was worn eggshaped. I said sure and bored it out and made a bushing for it.

Then along comes a big shop that was behind on a job. They asked me if I could help them out. I told them sure. Set up a LLC and went for it. Same friend that told me to get the work first was kind of dumbfounded. I told him that if they had asked him for help he would have looked at them like they were crazy, even though we both had pretty much exactly the same experience.

I made a ton of money from that one job, probably enough to pay for almost everything in my shop. That made a believer out of my friend.

I did go on to buy a lot more tooling but mostly on an as needed basis. I already had drill bits and taps up to 1/2". I expanded to stock much larger drill bits and taps. Same for reamers. Went with insert tooling on most machines and lots of carbide end mills. Added a CNC.

It's a journey, not a destination.

My bad, I guess I didn't word the original post properly.

I'm not naive enough to go out there with zero experience and buy all of the tooling one could possibly need, or begin with fabricating a working vehicle.

I was essentially asking those individuals who have been doing this for a considerable amount of time, who had purchased the tooling needed in order to complete hundreds or even thousands of projects, what their tooling inventory looks like. I guess more out of curiousity and further research purposes more than anything. So far, I have replies who misinterpreted my intent or the people who did understand what I was asking basically said screw off it's private. I guess this was the wrong forum or site to ask such a question.

I can't get this info from the YouTube personalities because they just won't answer/have too many incoming questions, and I can't ask the internet due to apparent selfish reasons or a superiority complex of sorts. I guess I hope to eventually meet a friend who's into machining, but that's not too common in the accounting and finance world. Thanks...I guess?

One question that I remember the answer from trade school that is still true as far as used machines go in my belief, it will cost as much or more than the machine cost to tool it up. There's lots of variables such as playing around on ebay but that is a crap shoot IMO, buy a chuck at a discount price and find out it's sprung and inaccurate then try another one. Maybe I get lucky and a nice one shows up with plenty of life left in it so I move on to a collet chuck and have similar results, maybe going through 2 or more to find a good one remembering all the time that some of the prices are at half or more than a new one but a new one is out because it is no longer made.
The point is, this is one of the most expensive trades to start up. As far as what the OP intends to do and what I have are unrelated because what I do is a totally different class of work. An example is I don't build car frames and form sheet metal into body parts so none of the equipment are in my shop.

Jamison-

Back in the early days of YouTube (5+ years ago) the half dozen active YouTube machinists would typically do a 'shop tour' segment or two. They'd walk around their shop opening drawers and cabinets talking through what they had on hand in each. Mr.Pete, Tom Lipton, Keith Fenner, Keith Rucker and several others. In my opinion, at first it was interesting and informative for the reasons you're asking...then got deathly boring. Like watching endless unboxing videos used to be a thing on YouTube then thankfully disappeared.

If you go back into the early catalogue of the YouTube machinist videos (usually within their first year of posting) you'll find a half dozen of these 'shop tours'. Should give you a sense for what types of tools a general job shop might keep on hand.

Danny VanVoorn said:

One question that I remember the answer from trade school that is still true as far as used machines go in my belief, it will cost as much or more than the machine cost to tool it up. There's lots of variables such as playing around on ebay but that is a crap shoot IMO, buy a chuck at a discount price and find out it's sprung and inaccurate then try another one. Maybe I get lucky and a nice one shows up with plenty of life left in it so I move on to a collet chuck and have similar results, maybe going through 2 or more to find a good one remembering all the time that some of the prices are at half or more than a new one but a new one is out because it is no longer made.
The point is, this is one of the most expensive trades to start up. As far as what the OP intends to do and what I have are unrelated because what I do is a totally different class of work. An example is I don't build car frames and form sheet metal into body parts so none of the equipment are in my shop.

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Understood, but the example of a car is the dream project. I intend to try and learn to do as many types of projects as reasonably possible. I also believe in solid used machinery based on availability and wouldn't be buying random Ebay stuff if the project required accuracy.

How about a middle ground then? Can anyone point me in the right direction as to which tooling manufacturers are considered quality? It has always appeared to me, at least so far, that brand names are less important than the specs claimed for a given end mill as an example. Just any wisdom or knowledge you guys wish to impart, I'm an open ear.

jamison said:

Understood, but the example of a car is the dream project. I intend to try and learn to do as many types of projects as reasonably possible. I also believe in solid used machinery based on availability and wouldn't be buying random Ebay stuff if the project required accuracy.

How about a middle ground then? Can anyone point me in the right direction as to which tooling manufacturers are considered quality? It has always appeared to me, at least so far, that brand names are less important than the specs claimed for a given end mill as an example. Just any wisdom or knowledge you guys wish to impart, I'm an open ear.

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Brand name less important than specs? I haven't found that to be the case. I'm in the midst of tooling up a small-ish shop myself to add component and assembly testing capability to our business. That said, I've done a lot more reading than purchasing, and many people out there have found the "specs" on a lot of lower priced import equipment to be... optimistic at best.

My own experience has confirmed this in a few cases, and I've been pleasantly surprised in others. I haven't gone to the bottom of the barrel on anything, but I've rolled the dice so to speak on a couple things and gotten both lucky and not so lucky.

jamison said:

Understood, but the example of a car is the dream project. I intend to try and learn to do as many types of projects as reasonably possible. I also believe in solid used machinery based on availability and wouldn't be buying random Ebay stuff if the project required accuracy.

How about a middle ground then? Can anyone point me in the right direction as to which tooling manufacturers are considered quality? It has always appeared to me, at least so far, that brand names are less important than the specs claimed for a given end mill as an example. Just any wisdom or knowledge you guys wish to impart, I'm an open ear.

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To try and expand what you're asking I have possibly 50 NC type tool holder of various varieties for a manual lathe. Do I need all of them? Not every day but when a use comes up you can bet I will. Inserts vary with style as far as brand goes but the shop I worked full time was a Kennametal mostly shop and I ind they make for the most part what works. That's just a small percent of what I have invested in chucks, collet closers, tool post and holders and then tailstock tooling and proprietary thing like steady rest and follower rest etc. for the lathe only.
Now if you think I,m going to catalugue everything for the lathe, the mills and the grinding machines you've got the wrong guy here. I don't like long winded replies enough to want to help a guy that I don't know, especially one that could use his own imagination and figure out what he will need himself.
Dan

What the OP is asking is sort of asking for a book on everything about auto related machining that might come up. Maybe searching the forums here by topic such as “tie rod end” or “welding an intake manifold” would be a way to gain insight as to what tooling is needed for those kinds of repairs. This forum is a huge resource for that kind of thing, better than any long and detailed post about what tooling to stock.

Once you find you need a threading whatchamajigger, then look more for what brand fits your needs.

In the meantime, search and study this forum for auto related posts. You will learn so much.

Danny VanVoorn said:

To try and expand what you're asking I have possibly 50 NC type tool holder of various varieties for a manual lathe. Do I need all of them? Not every day but when a use comes up you can bet I will. Inserts vary with style as far as brand goes but the shop I worked full time was a Kennametal mostly shop and I ind they make for the most part what works. That's just a small percent of what I have invested in chucks, collet closers, tool post and holders and then tailstock tooling and proprietary thing like steady rest and follower rest etc. for the lathe only.
Now if you think I,m going to catalugue everything for the lathe, the mills and the grinding machines you've got the wrong guy here. I don't like long winded replies enough to want to help a guy that I don't know, especially one that could use his own imagination and figure out what he will need himself.
Dan

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I certainly don't expect anyone to go take inventory of what they have and organize a reply for me. I was hoping there are some dudes out there like me. If I purchase my own machines and begin buying tooling for jobs, I'm the type of person who will 100% create a spreadsheet and catalog every detail on every tool I own. If I get a new project, check the spreadsheet for tools I'll potentially need, buy what's missing.

I figured this would be somewhat common given tool presets needed for G-Code for those with NCN machines at least. For example, I imagine you enter a decent amount of detail into the software if you're going to select it for an operation on your machinery. On the business end of things, I don't see how a well-run shop wouldn't keep an inventory of tooling in use and relevant backups for the purposes of restocking as needed. So, I was hoping for someone/anyone to cut and paste an example of what they have in such scenarios without giving away more info than anyone wished to give. I was wrong and I'll move on.

I'm getting the grumpy old uncle feeling in this thread, so perhaps the industry needs to age a bit more so there are more people of my generation who seem to be more open to sharing and helping. However, I imagine the hobbyist machinist is a declining population and will only decline further as computers take over virtually everything. I doubt there are too many 20 and 30 something year-olds in the industry receiving training and working professionally on manual machines on a daily basis, so a lot of those skills and knowledge will be left in old books, old forum posts, and old YT videos 10-15 years from now.

You are asking a question that can't be answered and are overthinking it in general. Buy what you need for the task at hand. If it's generic and not expensive, maybe buy a few. If you need 1/2" endmills, maybe buy a half dozen since you can use them for everything.

With the internet, you literally have the whole world at your disposal, basically unlimited amounts of tooling in stock or custom that can be sent to your house in a matter of days. High production shops do this all the time. If you're doing it as a hobby, why waste money on tools you're not sure you'll ever use. Buy for the task at hand and save for the next go around. Otherwise you just end up with a shop full of junk. If it's a hobby, you just need to look in the drawer and say, hey, I need a 1" hole saw or a few more 1/4" endmills.

When I moved to CNC machines as a 'hobby', I find I need way less tooling than I did on my Bridgeport, because code is easier than buying a specific tool that will save you three different setups. Good example is putting a radius on things. Can 3D surface or just as easily program circles instead of having to use a corner rounder or bust out a rotary table.

There's different tooling to build a roll cage or machine an engine block...

jamison said:

I'm getting the grumpy old uncle feeling in this thread, so perhaps the industry needs to age a bit more so there are more people of my generation who seem to be more open to sharing and helping. However, I imagine the hobbyist machinist is a declining population and will only decline further as computers take over virtually everything. I doubt there are too many 20 and 30 something year-olds in the industry receiving training and working professionally on manual machines on a daily basis, so a lot of those skills and knowledge will be left in old books, old forum posts, and old YT videos 10-15 years from now.

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It's true that as a demographic, we machinists will trend to being "older", as it's the nature of the work we do. Manufacturing in the USA has declined significant;y over the last thirty years or so, and those of us that have hung on in the professions will be the battle scarred vets, the guys with the thousand yard stares.

So when asked a very open-ended question, we sometimes just sigh and either grump or step back. Don't be offended, it's our way of coping. It's a jungle out there...

For you, I'd suggest not buying any machines or tooling yet, but try to find a race or mechanics shop in your area that does the sort of work you're interested in. See if you can introduce yourself, ask if there's some way you could get involved. Maybe it starts with cleaning and organizing, maybe you'll be handed a wrench and a very simple part to muck with.

As you do this stuff, you'll watch and learn what the experienced guys are doing. And you'll be watched too, and if you prove worthy you'll get more involved and difficult things to do. That's one of the best ways of figuring out whether you've got aptitude and the genuine interest to follow through.

Then, with actual knowledge, you'll be much better at figuring out the equipment and tooling needed for your dreams. Just be sure to budget in a way that won't stress the credit cards too much (they're seductive), or limit other necessities.

Another option is to see if there's any vocational classes you can take in your area, Machine Shop or Automotive training during the evenings may be useful.

Buy what you need, when you need it. Almost all tooling is available in 2 days now. Only buy "maybe for later" stuff at auction, by the lot or pallet, for pennies on the dollar.

Its not a generation gap that's giving you these responses. You want to go to The Garage Journal Board - Powered by vBulletin. GJ is all about people building there dream hobby shops for working on cars.

PM has great users and info about machining but not car hobby related.