Author Topic: High Speed Steel Purchases - Charity or Art?  (Read 4312 times)

Offline Pete W.

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High Speed Steel Purchases - Charity or Art?
« on: June 01, 2017, 12:22:12 PM »
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.)

 
Best regards,

Pete W.

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, you haven't seen the latest design change-note!

Offline lesterhawksby

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Re: High Speed Steel Purchases - Charity or Art?
« Reply #1 on: June 01, 2017, 12:48:31 PM »
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"

Offline awemawson

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Re: High Speed Steel Purchases - Charity or Art?
« Reply #2 on: June 01, 2017, 01:00:20 PM »
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.
Andrew Mawson
East Sussex

Offline Jonfb64

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Re: High Speed Steel Purchases - Charity or Art?
« Reply #3 on: June 01, 2017, 02:03:51 PM »
It's only art if you've to the royal college and got a degree :lol:

Offline Lew_Merrick_PE

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Re: High Speed Steel Purchases - Charity or Art?
« Reply #4 on: June 01, 2017, 02:27:29 PM »
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.

Offline sparky961

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Re: High Speed Steel Purchases - Charity or Art?
« Reply #5 on: June 01, 2017, 07:34:35 PM »
A current project involves turning a component or two from Delrin rod.  My initial attempts using my usual tools gave very unsatisfactory results

I'm a little surprised to say the least.  Delrin is my absolute favourite plastic to turn because it's one of the easiest I've found to work with.  It's more rigid than UHMW(PE), so you can clamp it with decent force.  It doesn't melt as easily as Nylon or ABS, and the chips break up very nicely unlike Nylon and UHMW(PE)

Sharp tools, absolutely.  But you really should be able to achieve acceptable results with carbide insert tooling as well.  Maybe you can post some pictures and descriptions of the issues you're having and what you've already tried.  I'm sure plenty of advice will follow.

Offline Pete W.

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Re: High Speed Steel Purchases - Charity or Art?
« Reply #6 on: June 02, 2017, 05:06:32 AM »
Thank you all for your replies.    :mmr:  :thumbup:   :clap:   :thumbup:   :clap: 

I'm not going to respond fully at the moment (a bit busy this morning!) but I'd like to make just one observation:

If you've read my thread 'Dicing with Delrin' you'll have seen that I got on well with the material in that case.  On the other hand, I posted an earlier thread called something like 'Beaten by the Bush' where the results were terrible!  The difference between the two is that the earlier project involved 2" diameter Delrin rod while the more recent one used 9 mm thick Delrin sheet.  I bought both lots of material from (different) eBay sellers and so I'm dependent on their identification of the materials.

I want to seek your advice on lathe tool grinding plus the do's and don'ts of grinding wheels but I think that'll be best handled in a new thread - please hold off until I start that.   
Best regards,

Pete W.

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, you haven't seen the latest design change-note!

Offline mcostello

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Re: High Speed Steel Purchases - Charity or Art?
« Reply #7 on: June 02, 2017, 02:30:02 PM »
Those shapes are totally useful, I have around 20-30 pounds of tool bits that look like that. Some even more odd.
High Speed steel in a Carbide world.