Shoutout to the tool guy who told me to try a different insert grade

I always ran carbide inserts on my CNC lathe for steel parts. Fought with chatter and tool life for months on a job in Cleveland. He convinced me to switch to a coated cermet for finishing passes. After 3 weeks of testing, surface finish went from Ra 64 to Ra 32, and I'm getting 4x more parts per edge now. Anyone else had a random tip from a supplier totally change your setup?

3 comments

3 Comments

hernandez.jordan11d ago

Have you tried running ceramic inserts on that same material? I did for a heat treated steel job and got double the surface speed with way less heat buildup. Total game changer for my cycle times, even if the initial cost per insert stung a little. Your mileage may vary depending on the machine rigidity though.

jake_kelly2410d ago

Coated cermet for finishing passes" was exactly what I needed too. I was burning through carbide on 4140 pre-hard and a tool vendor talked me into trying your exact same switch, cut my surface finish in half and tripled my edge life.

juliam4010d ago

Whoa hold up. Ceramic on 4140 pre-hard sounds like a disaster waiting to happen unless your machine is a tank. Most guys running manual or older cnc will just get chipping and a bad finish before the insert even warms up. Stick with the cermet for that hardness range, ceramic is for way harder stuff in my book.