The Shop > Tools
High Speed Steel Purchases - Charity or Art?
Pete W.:
A current project involves turning a component or two from Delrin rod. My initial attempts using my usual tools gave very unsatisfactory results so I thought 'It's no good, I'll just have to grind a tool from HSS to suit the application'.
So I got together my entire stock of HSS and went through it to see if there was a piece that was a good starting point.
In my early days, I bought a few job-lots of HSS and some job-lots that included HSS. More recently, I've got a bit more savvy and chose the size that fits my Dickson QCTP tool-holders and stocked up on that.
While reviewing my 'stock', I started to wonder who ground some of the bizarre lumps and what jobs could possibly explain their shapes. I've taken a photo (see below) of a few of the more extreme examples but I have many more pieces, most seem to be too small to be reground into anything useful.
So, my message in this post is: be careful when you buy job-lots of HSS, unless that is, you are moved by charity or support for the 'Arts'! :lol: :lol: :lol:
(I have a few findings to share about tool-grinding but I'll save those for another thread.)
lesterhawksby:
It looks like a sort of "tool shape rot" - starting sensible in most cases and bashing off just a little here and a little there to fit this job and then that job and then another job in an even tighter space. I might be guilty of a little of that myself. :scratch:
You know, thinking about it, that bunch actually looks quite sane compared to one assemblage of old lathe bits I've seen that clearly didn't start from an abundance of clue. ...wish I had a pic of those, it might make a motivational poster above my bench grinder with the caption "AT LEAST THESE AREN'T YOUR FAULT"
awemawson:
Well you have an internal threading tool and various grooving tools, some probably ground to suit a particular 'O-ring'. I have a box of variegated HSS that could probably match most of those, at least in form if not in exact dimensions. Had them years, rarely use them, but when I do it invariably digs me out of a hole. Usually they need a touch of modification first.
Jonfb64:
It's only art if you've to the royal college and got a degree :lol:
Lew_Merrick_PE:
Pete -- Either High Carbon or HSS bits should work nicely with Acetal (Delrin) material so long as they are SHARP! It is (generally) much harder to assure that the SWARF does not get in the way.
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