Lower cost carbide inserts

[chris m]

Thanks a lot for all the information, Bruce; I appreciate it. The Valenite guy claims that they have a new super-duper steel grade that is going to eat Sandvik's lunch in my 4340 roughing; we'll see how they do. I have never really made much time for insert testing because I operate on the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' philosophy and Sandvik's carbide has treated us pretty well over the years, but when the belt gets tight it is tough to ignore the guy telling you he'll sell you inserts for $5.50 when you're paying $9 for the [theoretically] comparable tool. Time to start running some head-to-heads and see what the skinny is.

 

C

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chris m,

I also have used carbidedepot.com and it's kinda like a surplus buyout. They dont always have what I want in stock, but when they do they are the cheapest around.

[chris m]

Thanks; that's kinda what I figured, but when they show 'ships from NC' on Kyocera [which is where Kyocera's warehouse is located] it threw me off a bit

[Tim Johnson]

quote:

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Those carbide depot prices are pretty good; is the supply reliable, or does it vary?

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Our crib guy was showing me this very website and I asked the same question about the supply. He called them (for Kennametal inserts) and found out they drop ship the orders.

[chris m]

I know they're drop shipped, but are they the same inserts all of the time or are the manufacturers just calling them up and saying "hey, we made way too many CNMG 432HQ CA5515; can you get rid of them for us?"

[Mic6]

quote:

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Ingersoll on the milling side and you would want to stay away from them.

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What does this mean? I'm running some Ingersoll in milling and it's great. Or did you mean pricewise?

[Tim Johnson]

I tested Ingersoll, Iscar, Mitsubishi, and Dapra looking to update our Iscar line using 304L sst as the material. I wrote a material removal program, gave the reps my cutting parameters and told them to give me speeds and feeds, and set up appointments with each rep. We played with speeds/feeds to dial each cutter in and then ran them through two sets of inserts. Dapra won by quite a margin. Iscar came in second. Mitsubishi was third but very close to Iscar but the cutters were much louder. Ingersoll blew up two cutters the first time, and asked for a retest. I said no then the salesman talked to my superviser and gave him quotes so low that I was told to give then another test. The second time they blew three holders and asked for a third test. The most program runs they could get thru was six parts. The Mitsubishi (third place)was getting 20 before notching started.

 

We also were stuck with the Aluminators(sp) for about six months. This time our prototypers tested the tooling and they said they were great. I had to test the 1" on our most productive (an extreemly rigid setup) and using the speeds/feeds of our OTM's they ran our parts but was louder than hell and I gave them a bad report. I was asked if the result was any different from the OTM cutter. I had to say that technically the finish was the same. I found out later that we were getting all of our holders for free while puchasing $6000 worth of inserts. The inserts were about 1/2 the price of OTM. Shortly the operators were coming in hollaring that I was running the tools way to hard. All I did was change the name of the holders on the tooling sheets. The Aluminators were yanking the parts out of the vises when they could and actually shearing the pockets off the face mill holders when they couldn't. After about six months of this along with me slowing down feeds and doc's we finally went back to OTM.

 

...and that is my sad story with Ingersoll.

[Newbeeee™]

We use Korloy for ally, Seco for steel.