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Anyone know how cutting tools are manufactured?

Metals and materials
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AHarrison1 Rising Star

AHarrison1

Posted
Posted
15 minutes ago, JParis said:

I wonder how many of here have had to grind their own tools?

Been there...done that...

Worked at a place once where you went to the tool crib to get a ball nose and they would give you a carbide blank and directions

to your nearest tool-post grinder.

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#Rekd™ Experienced

#Rekd™

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, JParis said:

I wonder how many of here have had to grind their own tools?

We still do it! Not as often now..... but for proto-typing it is needed. Making reamers (D shape bits), grinding HSS lathe bits, making boring bars and internal threading tools, facing tools etc. 

I had a guy here and he would free hand grind the bottom of the end mills, they worked well after!!! He would sharpen drills down to 0.02" by hand.

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Aaron Eberhard Experienced

Aaron Eberhard

Posted
Posted
3 hours ago, JParis said:

I wonder how many of here have had to grind their own tools?

Seems to me the pool of people that can walk over to a tool post grinder is getting incredibly small....

I've never done it.. 

The only place I've ever been in that made their own tools had a CNC grinder a lot like the one in the video I linked to.  I've designed quite a few tools to be cut, but they were all being done on CNC grinders I'm pretty sure (most were sent out of house to make custom forms).

4 hours ago, Metals and materials said:

Interesting! They are grinded. Wait so like these Kennametal's or Harvey grind those tools in hundreds of thousands of quantities?

A lot of larger tooling companies are conglomerates of small tool grinding houses.  I would imagine in order to be competitive most surviving tool companies are using CNCs, just like most general manufacturing is. 

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Kyle F Community Regular

Kyle F

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, JParis said:

I wonder how many of here have had to grind their own tools?

Seems to me the pool of people that can walk over to a tool post grinder is getting incredibly small....

I can technically sharped a drill assuming the diameter is large enough LOL

but it's been yeeeears since I've done that. HSS drills are too cheap and parts too expensive and that's not even taking my personal laziness into account.

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cncappsjames Experienced

cncappsjames

Posted
Posted

Only ever had to grind drills, corner radii, and a few form tools. I'd say the VAST majority of guys that can do that now have gray hair or no hair.

Generic carbide tools today are so inexpensive it's cost prohibitive for machinists to grind their own tools from scratch any more. IMHO of course.

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So not a Guru Community Regular

So not a Guru

Posted
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6 minutes ago, cncappsjames said:

Only ever had to grind drills, corner radii, and a few form tools. I'd say the VAST majority of guys that can do that now have gray hair or no hair.

Generic carbide tools today are so inexpensive it's cost prohibitive for machinists to grind their own tools from scratch any more. IMHO of course.

My experience is exactly the same. I've also made a lot of custom form tools from tool steel flat stock, mounted into fly cutters.

But it's been many, may moons since that was required of me.

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Aaron Eberhard Experienced

Aaron Eberhard

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2 hours ago, So not a Guru said:

Another video

 

Great video. Except for the upbeat inspiring music (which my shop doesn't have playing), it looks like every other modern machine shop, enginerds designing things, cam programmers 'grammin away, and the CNC machines doing the work (grinding in this case) :)

 

At my failed attempt to buy out a machine shop a few years ago, the old school owner very smugly showed me how much more efficient it was for him to spend 4+ hours grinding a tool to cut a small feature on the lathe instead of "wasting" $100 to just buy it off the shelf from Micro100...   That was a valuable lesson, just not the one he thought it was teaching...

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gcode Experienced

gcode

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, Aaron Eberhard said:

how much more efficient it was for him to spend 4+ hours grinding a tool to cut a small feature on the lathe instead of "wasting" $100 to just buy it off the shelf from Micro100.

well, considering that the owners of many small machine shops are doing well to break even in any given month,

4 hours of his working for free might have been the better option   LOL

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Kyle F Community Regular

Kyle F

Posted
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44 minutes ago, gcode said:

well, considering that the owners of many small machine shops are doing well to break even in any given month,

4 hours of his working for free might have been the better option   LOL

giphy.gif

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So not a Guru Community Regular

So not a Guru

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, Aaron Eberhard said:

At my failed attempt to buy out a machine shop a few years ago, the old school owner very smugly showed me how much more efficient it was for him to spend 4+ hours grinding a tool to cut a small feature on the lathe instead of "wasting" $100 to just buy it off the shelf from Micro100...   That was a valuable lesson, just not the one he thought it was teaching...

Throwing away dollars to save dimes, doesn't sound as efficient as he believes!:wallbash:

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