"Tony" wrote in message
news
HSS are cheaper, more forgiving, and can be easily custom ground for a
job.
HSS is still the standard for lathe use, especially in a non-production
environment.

If I had lots of free time on my hands I'd probably use HSS cutting tools
more often, but now I only use them for special purposes, like a special
formed tool. It just takes too long to form and resharpen HSS tools compared
to swapping in an insert.
Also, when you swap an insert your setup is still correct, but when you have
to resharpen an HSS tool now you need to change your setup to compensate for
the different tool length.

We do prototyping and small runs here and I have a guy who helps me and
basically acts as a machine operator, but he doesn't really have any
machinist skills or training.
With the insert tools I can have him swap inserts when one gets dull, but
there's no way he could handle reshapening the tool and then doing the setup
again.


BTW what do you use for drill bits???


Big difference here, I can buy a HSS drill bit for less than a buck ready to
go, and when its dull, we chuck it in the recycle bin and put in a new one.
At less than a buck cost, its not worth the time to stop work and resharpen
them.
If you could buy a HSS lathe tool preformed and presharped at a reasonable
price we'd probably use them a lot more.

By the way, when I first learned to run machine tools, I had a great
instructor who taught us how to grind an HSS lathe tool from scratch, and
for a few years all I used was HSS. It has its place, but for the work we do
here that place has gotten smaller and smaller.

Also, I find almost any lathe can be used with insert tooling as long as its
positive relief. You can't take monster cuts on an older smaller lathe with
the inserts, but you can't do that with HSS tools either on those lathes.

We're still using a 1933 11" SouthBend lathe here with an AXA toolpost and
cutting tools that almost all use TPG222 type insert tooling.
APT makes a boring tool that takes this insert and works well with the AXA
tool post.
This way we don't have to stock as many different insert types.
We've got a Clausing 5914 thats being prepped up to replace the SB, so soon
we'll move from a 70 year old lathe to a 30 year old lathe.

Paul T.