# Carbide inserts for lathe tools; do they vary in quality..?



## tangledfeet (9 Mar 2018)

I teach practical metalwork at a Scottish secondary school and I've gone over to using carbide insert tooling; it has certainly made things much easier! (And we don't have a grinder in the workshop so couldn't use HSS anyway.)

We bought the tool itself from RDG Tools and have got to the end of the stock of the CNMG 09 03 inserts that I bought with it and I was wondering whether it would be worth buying the next batch of inserts from somewhere else, Sandvik Coromant, rather than those from RDG themselves? Are carbide inserts better quality or more robust if you pay more..?

https://www.rdgtools.co.uk/acatalog/CNM ... -1973.html

These are kids so they're generally somewhat lacking in finesse when it comes to using the lathes and have little appreciation of cutting feed rate, etc.! 

Thanks!


----------



## Fergal (13 Mar 2018)

I'm not an expert by any means and only got my metal working lathe recently, but I've also found carbide insert tooling to be much more convenient than HSS. Apart from some tools that came with my lathe (from RDG incidentally) I've only bought other stuff from banggood.com and that seems equivalent in quality but at a much lower price. 

Also, all the youtube reviews I've seen of banggood tooling have been favourable. So, it would seem that as far as carbide inserts go, you don't necessarily get better quality as the price increases.

Fergal


----------



## hawkeyefxr (18 Mar 2018)

There are different types but i am not sure what they are, i do know i wish i had then in my apprenticeship in the 60s, all we had was HSS. Yes they were about then but at a cost.

If you go to Cromwell's site https://www.cromwell.co.uk/ they do different types of carbide tip, they may well say what the difference is. They do a free catalogue (2in thick) and it show them all.
There is not one up in you neck of the woods have check, but they may well send one to you FOC, especially if you mention you teach metalwork.


----------



## tangledfeet (23 Mar 2018)

Picked up some Sandvik carbide inserts on eBay for a relative bargain; shall see if they last any longer. 

Alas Cromwell don't do the inserts for the tooling at school but I might be tempted to get hold of one of their catalogues for bedtime / toilet reading!


----------

