Shars Carbide Tipped Tools Bits - Comments & Reviews

Hi Everyone,

thanks again for the help.

Mikey pretty much nailed it. The main goal of the course is don't kill yourself and absolutely do not break the lathe. What I pretty much want to accomplish is a sound foundation in safe operation so that they can accomplish basic tasks like facing, chamfering, drilling, and some light cutting. For some people that's all they'll ever need. For people who want to take it further we'll be setting up more advanced user groups and training sessions.

We've got two grinders and I could bring a third. I'm looking to keep the class to a max of 5, maybe even 4 so I get good facetime with everyone.

2-3 hours of youtube video's for them to watch the week before; safety, basic operation, tool grinding :p , a couple good crash video's, followed by an online questionnaire. Then 4 hours live in the shop.
 
What kind of lathe do you guys have?
 
That's a good sized lathe. Top speed of 1800 rpm.

I'm sure you know that on larger work pieces that lathe can accommodate, inserted carbide will work just fine. Brazed carbide would be very good on that lathe, too, especially for medium and high carbon steels. HSS would be my first choice for smaller work or when tight tolerances are required. A lot depends on the size of work and materials your students typically work with.

Safety is always priority 1 but on a lathe of that size and power it becomes a major concern, especially when you have folks with limited experience working with it. If I were the instructor, I would be showing some really graphic photos or videos to drive home the respect such machines deserve.
 
Each kind of tooling has its place. Guys who want to *make* stuff but aren't proficient pose a special kind of problem.

Even so, learning to use a lathe requires learning to care for your cutters. Like learning to walk is handy if you want go somewhere. Even though it seems like unnecessary complexity, I'd also vote for the HSS/grind your own tool approach. Getting them to sharpen/make a 5/5/5 degree LH turning tool is a skill that they won't regret if they use a lathe for any time at all. Plus, you can sell them just one HSS blank and have them grind both ends: one with a minuscule radius for low pressure, and one with a large one for good finish.

All the best in your xxxSpace!
 
Ok, so now my interest is piqued. What is the "Book of Mikey?"

I will be the first to admit that I do not know what I should in regards to making my own HSS lathe tools. As many have pointed out, that lack of knowledge on knowing how to make tools transfers into not knowing what is wrong when cuts go south. What would be a good resource for learning that skill?
 
7milesup said:
Ok, so now my interest is piqued. What is the "Book of Mikey?"
Click to expand...


https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/models-for-grinding-hss-lathe-tools.62111/

In that thread, someone collected all of the best posts and put them in a nice PDF you can print to take to the grinder. As most of the content, I think all of it, came from @mikey.. I started calling it that. It's great content and the whole thread is an interesting, but rather long read. It's worth the time to skim through after reading the book though. If you want to know how tools cut and how to make them do it better, it's the place to be. There are even a few sets of model tools being passed around so you can hold them in your hand and compare them to yours.
 
ttabbal said:
https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/models-for-grinding-hss-lathe-tools.62111/

In that thread, someone collected all of the best posts and put them in a nice PDF you can print to take to the grinder. As most of the content, I think all of it, came from @mikey.. I started calling it that. It's great content and the whole thread is an interesting, but rather long read. It's worth the time to skim through after reading the book though. If you want to know how tools cut and how to make them do it better, it's the place to be. There are even a few sets of model tools being passed around so you can hold them in your hand and compare them to yours.
Click to expand...

Awesome!! Thank you. I will check it out.
 
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