"Gil HASH" wrote in message
...
Hello for all
A newbie's strange question of the day :
Can we choose between HSS cutters, end mills versus cutters or end mills
with carbide inserts
what are the advantages and disadvantages of each one?



Certainly you can choose between them, but your machinery should be the
dictating factor. Carbide doesn't perform well on small (light weight,
under powered and slow speed) machinery, nor is there much of an advantage
in using it unless you use it as it's intended to be used. When
operating a mill, there may be certain advantages to using carbide in lieu
of HSS, but, in general, unless you have a fairly rigid machine and run the
cutter appropriately, you may find it performs poorly. Carbide is much
improved as compared to years ago, when I broke into the trade, so it is far
more forgiving than it used to be. In either case, HSS, or carbide, on
milling cutters, you can't do much in the way of sharpening unless you own a
cutter grinder, so in that case it makes little difference.

Lathe tools? That's a different story. Do yourself a favor and don't use
carbide exclusively. You'll deprive yourself of the learning process of
grinding cutting tools, which, in the long run, will be to your detriment.
Until you understand cutter theory, you'll suffer with machining. You'll
not learn it by using inserts. If you have a small lathe with slow
spindle speed, I'd suggest you don't use carbide at all.

Harold