Jesse, I took your advice long before I met you. My little 11 x 24 Logan would not accept Carbide tool bits at all, so now I do as you suggest--use HSS for all my cutting needs, the Carbide tipped ones quietly residing in a box somewhere on the back of the workbench. Al Messer --- JESSE LIVINGSTON <fernj1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote: > May I humbly suggest that my fellow modelers with > our smallish lathes take > all of their carbide tipped tooling and put it > securely out of sight. Our > light duty machine tools have no business being > forced to use carbide as > carbide tooling is for production work and/or > castings embedded with sand or > hard materials. We are not into production, or at > least most of us are not, > so stick with the much freer cutting HSS tool bits > and use the carbide only > when it HAS to be used. Your machines will thank > you for it by having their > lives extended many fold. What carbide tools I have > were made by myself by > silver soldering used carbide saw blade tips to > pieces of 1/4" keystock. I > give my home brew tools a lot of back rake and front > clearance so they do > not have to push the metal off the workpiece, but > instead, cut more like HSS > tools. Even then, I use the tools only when > absolutely necessary. Also, I > do a lot of short run light production work and use > HSS tooling for that > instead of carbide. > > Jesse, retired machinist in Tennessee USA > > > Hi Cliff, > > Your experience is interesting to me. > > I also purchased a set of tipped tools from a well > known model engineering > > supplier but I have been very disappointed with > them. > > The tips are very sensitive to intermittent shocks > such as when turning a > > round from an irregular shaped blank. > > Out of a set of 5 tools, each with a 3 sided > replaceable tip, almost all > of > > the cutting edges have chipped off and I can no > longer use them. I know > that I > > could purchase more tips at approx. 3.50UKP each > but it seems pointless > when I > > can make a piece of HSS last for months. > > Being very much a beginner at this turning lark I > assumed that I was doing > > something wrong, but perhaps the only thing that I > have got wrong trying > to do > > the job on the cheap. > > Regards Ken Jones in Sunny Berkshire. > > MODEL ENGINEERING DISCUSSION LIST. > > To UNSUBSCRIBE from this list, send a blank email > to, > modeleng-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word > "unsubscribe" in the subject line. > __________________________________ Start your day with Yahoo! - Make it your home page! http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs MODEL ENGINEERING DISCUSSION LIST. To UNSUBSCRIBE from this list, send a blank email to, modeleng-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line.