Broken tools/tooling

[CoDef911]

Good morning. As this is only my 2nd post, it may be in the wrong section, but it applies to the machine I have (ENCO 110-1351).
I’m still waiting for some parts to arrive so I can get it up and running. So I spent all day Friday separating the tools I got into like areas. Single side mills, double ended mills, tooling, etc. I’m sure I’ll need to break them down farther in the future, but at least I’ve got a system.
My question is- what do you do when a tool breaks? Snap a flute? Broken carbide tip? Bent boring bar?
I know some pieces can be resharpened, but idk about mills. Before I landed the deal that filled my shop (and my dreams), I would just throw them away, as I had zero ability to fix it. Chunking a $20 bit sucks, but broken is broken.
What I found as I started separating the tooling, was a bunch of broken ends, but some were back in packaging. Wondering if they had a plan to fix em later, or maybe they were just hiding the broken pieces from management…
I’ll try to add some pics of some of the offending pieces later today. I’m behind the counter at my gun store today till 5, so it might be tomorrow.
Thanks for the help thus far!

 

[DAT510]

Welcome to H-M.

Broken bits can be a good source of HSS or Carbide for custom ground cutters, such as boring bar bits, single lip cutters, threading inserts, etc.

HSS is especially nice since it is easily ground on a bench grinder. Carbide needs slightly more specialized equipment/grinding wheels, but can be a good source of cutters without having to purchase commercially made ones.

Stephan Gotteswinter has some good videos on Carbide.

With a Cutter Grinder you can also resharpen end mills.

 

[RJSakowski]

In my experience manually restoring end mills is pretty much an exercise in futility. The reason being the you usually have more than one cutting surface and balancing them by eye is virtually impossible. There are exceptions. An end mill with a slightly dulled tip can be salvage by careful honing to break the sharp corner. broken flutes would require grinding away the damaged part and regrinding to provide the proper clearance angles . A bent boring bar could be straightened as th3e geometry requirements aren't that that precise.

It is possible to send end mills and the like out for resharpening but the costs involved only make it economical for the more expensive tools.

 

[C-Bag]

I got 15-20 dull, burned up and broken end mills and cutters with my old RF30 drill mill. I decided to find a tool and cutter grinder as not only are they expensive to replace, some are not as high quality as older bits. I also find it really useful to custom grind end Mills for different jobs. I ended up buying a Deckel clone with a R8 head off eBay. You could say spending $800 is kind of expensive but I’ve not bought a single new endmill since going this route. I’ve also made a burned up 8mm endmill into a 5/16” endmill, reground broken endmills into specific grinds for doing soft metals like copper and brass. My regrinds last as long as the original grind so it’s not like I use my grinder every day and I’m not sure it’s paid for itself but I feel it’s been worth it like on a weekend when one of my specific endmills has gotten dull and instead of being stuck, I just roll out the grinder and take care of biz. YMMV.

 

[CoDef911]

Here are just a couple pics of what I got, and a handful of the broken ones on a towel. In the lot of equipment, there was a Bovar-Schultz surface grinder that I'd originally intended to sell. But as I delve deeper into this, it appears that owning one is a huge benefit. There's a dozen plus wheels in the cabinet. I hope that one day I'll get a 3 phase converter and set it up properly. It sounds like it will come in handy more often than not.
Patiently waiting for my new switches to arrive, so I can power up the lathe...

 

[pacifica]

I got 15-20 dull, burned up and broken end mills and cutters with my old RF30 drill mill. I decided to find a tool and cutter grinder as not only are they expensive to replace, some are not as high quality as older bits. I also find it really useful to custom grind end Mills for different jobs. I ended up buying a Deckel clone with a R8 head off eBay. You could say spending $800 is kind of expensive but I’ve not bought a single new endmill since going this route. I’ve also made a burned up 8mm endmill into a 5/16” endmill, reground broken endmills into specific grinds for doing soft metals like copper and brass. My regrinds last as long as the original grind so it’s not like I use my grinder every day and I’m not sure it’s paid for itself but I feel it’s been worth it like on a weekend when one of my specific endmills has gotten dull and instead of being stuck, I just roll out the grinder and take care of biz. YMMV.

Going this route does increase your awareness of what sharp is and how to get there. Also if you get a good workflow going you don't wait for the tooling to get dull but keep everything nice and sharp.

 

[CoDef911]

DAT510- Thanks for the videos! Watching the first one showed me a tool that I realized had actually come with the lot, I just didn't know what it did.
I guess I'll have to watch some more videos to get it set up correctly, but it appears that the combo of this tool and the sharpener will work very well! I'd only opened the box once prior to now, so now I know!

 

[DAT510]

Looks like you got a great haul of equipment and tooling.

Depending on the power requirements for your surface grinder...... You may be able to power it off of Single Phase 220v with a VDF to give you 3 phase.

 

[CoDef911]

Here's the motor on the Bovar. 1HP, 3ph. In between selling guns and slackjawing with customers, I started looking at VFDs this morning. Just as I started reading into them, customers started coming in.
Any suggestions on the right way? I should add, that my shop has 3 phase power at the box, but not coming into the building. We are on schedule for my electrician to come replace our outside meter box, so I can have them retain the 3 phase that's there. We'd decided to dump it, because until now we'd never had the need. Electrical parts are cheaper with single phase, so that WAS the plan. I'll have to touch base with him and see if it explodes the cost of his work

 

[C-Bag]

Wow, you have a surface grinder that already has the tooling to grind endmills with, AND 3ph on the pole? What are ya wait in’ for son?

They other thing is you have PLENTY of practice tooling. If you mess it up, who cares, it was free. There are many site on the net and YT about tool grinding. It can be complicated to wrap your head around at first but with practice and patience you can save yourself a bunch of $$. I’ve picked up a bunch of used and reground tooling for pennies on the dollar.

Be interesting to see what the electrician says about wiring it in. BTW, 3ph machine tools are cheaper here because most folks don’t have 3ph and some don’t know about VFD’s. What’s expensive is anything that runs on single phase and is a hobby machine. They can go for 2x’s more than a industrial 3ph machine.