[Newbie] Tooling that came with lathe

DiscoDan

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I received the following tooling with my 12x36 craftsman atlas. There were no holders for the inserts and the labels on the boxes are not very readable. What are the round and square inserts for? I have the lantern tool holder. Will the big cutter just fit in the tool holder? Thanks
 
The pictures are not too clear, but to my eye, none of what is shown is appropriate to your lathe, so far as size is concerned, the triangular inserts? look like they may not be cutting tools, but instead, look like anvils that go under inserts in the holder. The round inserts are more or less unusable on a lathe such as yours; I'd be able to hear the chatter at my house!. The square inserts are just plain too big for a small lathe; what are they for? removing a lot of metal from big work, they would sit at a small angle to the work and do straight turning or facing. I think the round inserts are for finishing straight turning, I have a bunch of them, but have never used them.
 
The pictures are not too clear, but to my eye, none of what is shown is appropriate to your lathe, so far as size is concerned, the triangular inserts? look like they may not be cutting tools, but instead, look like anvils that go under inserts in the holder. The round inserts are more or less unusable on a lathe such as yours; I'd be able to hear the chatter at my house!. The square inserts are just plain too big for a small lathe; what are they for? removing a lot of metal from big work, they would sit at a small angle to the work and do straight turning or facing. I think the round inserts are for finishing straight turning, I have a bunch of them, but have never used them.

Where is the tool holders? I agree with benmychree that they look big for you lathe. However you can modify the tools holders to fit your lathe. However if you set the tools to center hight and take cuts appropriate for your lathe the tools will work as well as the smaller inserts. I routinely use modified tool holders on my G750G Grizzly with a BXA holder. I’m attaching one of my videos to show how I do it.


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jdedmon91, there were no tool holders with the inserts. The only tool holder I got was the lantern style. I am really curious though what type of operation would use the round or square inserts. I may end up selling all of the inserts just to recoup some my investment since I will likely never use any of them.
 
jdedmon91, there were no tool holders with the inserts. The only tool holder I got was the lantern style. I am really curious though what type of operation would use the round or square inserts. I may end up selling all of the inserts just to recoup some my investment since I will likely never use any of them.

Round or square inserts can be used for facing and turning with the proper tool holder. The draw back is you cannot machine up to a shoulder.

There are no holders that will work on a lantern style post without huge modifications. I thought you had a QCTP and the holders my bad.

However if you upgrade to a QCTP you could adapt tool holders to fit. Take the insert style do a search for the holder to fit the inserts. The drawback is the holders may be more expensive than just chucking the inserts and buying proper tooling.

In my case I got the tools and inserts basically for free so it was worth my effort


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My experience with trying to sell inserts (I have many hundreds) is that they are nearly worthless, especially if they are negative rake styles, as these look (possibly) to be. If one wanted to use carbide on the Craftsman lathe, it would likely be best to stick with a common positive rake style such as a TPU or G, 320 series, this is a triangular positive rake style that cuts freely and can turn to a square corner, and likewise face to a square corner.
Better yet, learn to grind HSS tools, they are better suited to the capabilities of the lathe and much cheaper to use for hobby work.
TPU is a "utility" finish, TPG is a ground finish, 300 is a 3/8" Inscribed circle size of triangular insert, the 3(2)0 denotes the thickness of the insert, in 1/16ths; a perhaps 1 or 2 replacing the last zero denotes the point radius in 64ths, I think.
 
Well I use negative rake tooling every day on my Grizzly G0750g. My go to tooling is a MCLR 16-3 witch takes CNMG 432 inserts. This is one of many I have dovetails machined in to fit my lathe. Before a had a 9x32 Lathemaster that used AXA post and I had the same tools modified with it. I sold the tooling I modified with it.

I’ve even sent one of these tools to other individuals who tried them out with success. IHMO the positive or negative rake isn’t as important as HP available at the spindle. That controls the depth of cut. Now I will admit the chip breaker in the inserts makes a difference and if I was buying inserts to use I’d recommend finishing inserts for the narrower chip breaker to correspond with the depth of cut one can take with a hobby lathe


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The large, rectangular tool, while it may fit in your lantern tool holder is not designed for that purpose. It needs a different tool block. The tools that use the lantern, have openings in them to accept square high speed steel tools which do the cutting.
 
My triangular inserts that I use in my 19" lathe are held in a Aloris double ended holder, which allows both turning and facing; the holder has adjustable chip breakers that can break chips in nearly All situations, from heavy roughing to fine finishing. I have two holders, one is positive rake for most all uses, and a negative rake holder for interrupted cuts; the negative rake inserts hold up much better than positive inserts under difficult conditions, but use much more power and do not finish as nicely, also, they have 6 cutting edges rather than 3, as with the positive inserts.
"Horsepower at the spindle" that is why I would not recommend negative rake on low power machines; they just do not have much horsepower available, not to mention the amount of pot metal used in their construction, they are simply not made for high or even moderate cutting forces that predominate with carbide tooling.
 
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