Educate me on Machinist tool bits

[softailgarage]

I have bunches of these that belonged to my dad. I know how they work, but wondering if they can be used over & over or is it just a one time usage? Is there a market for used bits or do you scrap 'em? These are fairly old most being made by "rex" is that a good name in bits?Are there better brand names? The longer ones in the pic appear to be homemade, are they of any value? Not being a machinist myself nor seeing it in my future, I'd like to do something with these, either sell them, scrap'em or melt them & make bulletsfor the impending Zombie wars.:

 

[AlexNGreen]

They are most definitely reusable. A machinist will grind the bit to any shape he needs for a particular job then resharpen if necessary or reshape for the next job. Rex bits are good high speed steel bits. There is a market for the used bits on eBay. Cool they came from your dad nothing really out of this world. If you'd like to see them go stop by the local technical college and donate them to the machinist program, they would be appreciated.

 

[rodm1]

They are outdated tech but still usable and probably always will be for odd jobs. By all means donate them but save a few cool one.

 

[HORDERofTOOLS]

I would save one if those Milford boxes and keep some bits in it, the box looks cool and you have some keepsakes inside that you could use if you need them.
Also, the long ones with the wide ridge on top in the last picture are parting bits for cutting a piece off in the lathe.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[gearhead1]

They are most definitely reusable. A machinist will grind the bit to any shape he needs for a particular job then resharpen if necessary or reshape for the next job. Rex bits are good high speed steel bits. There is a market for the used bits on eBay. Cool they came from your dad nothing really out of this world. If you'd like to see them go stop by the local technical college and donate them to the machinist program, they would be appreciated.

Ditto. I've bought a lot of the ones I have on ebay. It'll give you a good idea what they go for as well.

 

[ritzblitz]

If those boxes are full of virgin tools then those will be very nice to sell. I don't think many technical schools even use HSS bits anymore in their machining programs. It's just not practical. In the toolroom I work at, we use HSS for form tools, that's it.

Sell them on eBay! Or go to your local flea market maybe there's a dude selling tools there and he may buy them from you.

 

[holt2ton]

Being a machinist, we almost never use HSS tool bits in the shop. BUT, at home on my personal lathe I use them all the time. I just don't have the money to buy carbide tooling for all my needs. So keep a few as keepsakes and sell the rest. There are planty of people like me that still use them in their own personal shops where time isn't as important,,,,

 

[Steinmetz]

I have bunches of these that belonged to my dad. I know how they work, but wondering if they can be used over & over or is it just a one time usage? Is there a market for used bits or do you scrap 'em? These are fairly old most being made by "rex" is that a good name in bits?Are there better brand names? The longer ones in the pic appear to be homemade, are they of any value? Not being a machinist myself nor seeing it in my future, I'd like to do something with these, either sell them, scrap'em or melt them & make bulletsfor the impending Zombie wars.:

Rex tooling. It's good. Keep them. How much space can they take up?

And good luck melting them, unless you have an open hearth furnace in your garage. Steel in this category would destroy a firearms barrel immediately. Don't try anything foolish.

 

[Outlawmws]

ST, I'd keep them. IIR you are just getting started with a lathe. As you get more experience and want to do more things, ground HHS can do much more for you for less cost (free and time to regrind/touch up if needed...) and for a home shop it's mostly one off things you will build.

For repeated cuts and basic cuts, carbide is the work horse, but you will never be in a position for just ready made carbide tooling for everything, unless all you ever do is the simplest turning of shafts or facing cuts.

 

[Troutsqueezer]

Custom ground bits are common for making one-of-a-kind parts.
Certain shapes are needed for various cuts.
Most hobby machinists have drawers full of HSS bits of all shapes.
It only takes a few seconds to sharpen HSS bits.
A couple of minutes to reshape as well.
Can't do that with a carbide bit.
So HSS will never go out of fashion, IMO.

 

[Packard V8]

It only takes a few seconds to sharpen HSS bits.
A couple of minutes to reshape as well.

But many years or a good teacher to learn how. I knew some old millwrights who could grind a bit to cut most any contour in any machinable material. And yes, it usually only took a couple of minutes, once they had loaded the correct stone onto the grinder. Can't easily do complex shapes on a 1"-2" wide coarse grinder with an out-of-balance-out-of-round stone. If doing it regularly, they'd have a pegboard covered with wheels from 1/8" up to 2" with varying radiuses trued onto them.

jack vines

 

[Nelson58]

Absolutely reuseable if High Speed Steel (HSS)

http://www.hobby-machinist.com/showthread.php?t=19532&highlight=grind+tool+bits

 

[larry_g]

Me if I ran across that at a garage sale or swapmeet I would probably not hesitate to drop $25, and after looking may go to $50.

lg
no neat sig line

 

[Kevin54]

You have ground bits, you look to have a couple boxes of unground bits, and the last two pics are cutoff tools. For a home machinist, that is a great deal of tooling and very useful tooling.

Most shops use carbide tooling today. HSS will be for a home machinist. But you would be surprised what the HSS bits will cut. When I first started out in the trade, one job I was tasked with was cutting camshafts for airplane windshield wipers out of stainless steel. All we had at the time was HSS. I cut quite a few dozen of those camshafts.

So if you have a home lathe, you'll definitely want to keep them. You can do a search and find a diagram on how to sharpen them for general cutting purposes. I had a piece to make for a person a while back and would have gave anything to had those in my drawer. Luckily I found one bit that I could modify for what I needed.

 

[Nelson58]

Another good idea is to buy pre-ground ones, and make note of the angles and then grind your own to emulate those.

 

[Kevin54]

Here are just a few from doing a search for "Images" on "HOw to grind a lathe tool"

Normally, and for the OP, if you look in the two cardboard boxes of toolbit blanks, the ends of the toolbits are already angled. You may want to dress them, but not really necessary. The main thing is getting the top ground, and the sides ground. Even the top can be flat, but normally you want an radius in it, as this will curl up your swarf (chips), and keep a lot of them in the lathe bed.

To sharpen one is not rocket science, but yet there is an art to it. Once you get the hang of sharpening them, you will find a sweet spot to where the tool will last the longest between sharpenings.

One thing to remember, and this is for others that may have a lathe at home and happen to run across some bits at a swap meet or flea market......DO NOT pay a buck or two for something that is only an inch long. I have seen so many over the years selling someone elses throwaways for $1, $2, and even up to $5. You can go to ENCO's website and pay that for brand new blanks. At swap meets and flea markets, if the item has anything to do with "Machinist", the ones selling the items think they are gold.

At the Canfield Swap Meet, there was a guy selling lathe tools, end mills, and so on. Absolutely FANTASTIC prices. I bought end mills resharpened and waxed for $3-$5 each, including roughers. These were up to 3/8" in diameter. I bought a few carbide lathe bits off of him in different configurations, and 3/4" square for $1.00 each. When I go back to the next swap meet up there, I'ma spendin' a little more money at his booth.

Also for ones that may not know......IF YOU HAVE CARBIDE BITS.......you CANNOT sharpen them on a belt sander, or a regular bench grinder stone. You have to have a diamond impregnated stone to sharpen carbide. And with that type of stone, you want to keep it clean and NEVER use it for any steel or HSS as it will load it up.

Also when you are turning a piece of material, and it has a fuzzy, furry, rough finish to it, your tool is TOO SHARP. So for HSS you want a Norton/India stone, something like 3/8" square, and for carbide, you want to have a small diamond hand hone. All you need to do is hit the nose of the tool a few times to put a very small radius on it. Even something as small as .002-.005 radius is enough to take that fuzzy, furry, finish, to a finish that is as smooth as can be.

I've always told anyone that I trained in machining to "Become one with the machine, become one with the tool, and become one with the material". It may sound stupid, but if you listen very carefully, and if you can see with your mind and not your eyes, you can start to tell what you need to do to fix a cutting problem. Any tool, and any material will flex. Even a 1" carbide endmill will flex some when cutting. THe machine may push away, or it may pull towards you. A cutter will push away, it may push the material away, or the tool may be sucked in and the material pulled towards it. Once you can SEE everything in your mind and see what it's doing in your mind, and hear what things are doing, you can them become a better machinist. It's the same thing when they say "A blind person can see certain things better than a person that has sight". This is because he uses his other senses.

But anyways.....just a little on lesson on sharpening and a small lesson on machining for a Monday morning. Just watch what you spend on Machinist tools at swap meets, flea markets, and CL, because the word "Machinist" automatically drives the price up.

 

[Kevin54]

One other thing I forgot for ones that may go to a place like ENCO and want to buy their first toolbits. If you get preground bits, there will be "Center, Right Hand, and Left Hand, bits"

The Center bit is just what it says.....you can cut on either side of the bit, and the nose of the bit will be in the center.

A Right Hand Bit.......What it means is that you are cutting your material from the right to the left. In the case of a Right hand carbide bit, the carbide is on the left hand side, so don't think of it as a left hand bit. You always want to classify the right and left hand bits with the side you are cutting your material from

A Left Hand Bit is just the opposite. You would be cutting your material from the left hand side. Most (not all) lathe work normally uses right hand bits 90% of the time. But if you were cutting something like a small barbell shaped piece, where you had a shoulder on both ends and a smaller diameter shaft in the middle, you would most likely want both a right hand and a left hand bit. The right hand bit would be used to cut up to the left hand shoulder, and a left hand bit would be used to cut up to the right hand shoulder.

Here is one example of different bits:

ANd here is a good example of how the particular bits are used"

 

[fnieto]

I mostly use inserts type, but have several of the old cutters as once in a while I'll need to cut some custom thread (acme) of groove.

In High School machine shop, we had to learn how to grind all our cutting tools and drill bits.

 

[Kevin54]

I mostly use inserts type, but have several of the old cutters as once in a while I'll need to cut some custom thread (acme) of groove.

In High School machine shop, we had to learn how to grind all our cutting tools and drill bits.

The same with me. Almost all of my tooling uses inserts, but I had to make an underdrive pulley for a Supercharger, and needed a toolbit that I could grind to the correct configuration. It took me the better part of an hour to find just one. I was in a little panic for a while as I didn't have time to order any.

 

[Troutsqueezer]

Kevin, I recognize Brian Rupnow's diagrams from a couple of model engine machinist forums. We've been communicating for a number of years now. Are you into model engine machining?

http://www.goldfinch-acres.com/Steam Engines.html

 

[Kevin54]

Kevin, I recognize Brian Rupnow's diagrams from a couple of model engine machinist forums. We've been communicating for a number of years now. Are you into model engine machining?
http://www.goldfinch-acres.com/Steam Engines.html

I'm familiar with Goldfinch Acres website, ans I spent a number of hours on there reading through things. Very good website, if I must say so.

As of now as far as model machining, to answer your question....No. I have some plans that I bought and I really want to get into it, but even being retired, it seems like I don't have time. And that is my fault. I need to get some priorities in order, and utilize my time a little differently.

I want to get a garage addition built this summer, and not getting too far as I can't even get a price from the contractor I spoke with. But I am hoping that by this Fall or Winter, I can spend the time building a few small model engines. I have always found it very interesting. When I started out in the Tool & Die trade, the shop I hired in to, I was a ModelMaker and had the opportunity to make complete prototypes. It was a great job then, and I really want to make a few things like model engines that work, and to be able to display them.

Are you into the Model Engine making? If so, when I get into it, I may have to bend your ear quite a bit. I know that I'll have quite a few questions about some of the items and processes. I really need to get started into a solid hobby to pass my time instead of some days just not doing a darn thing.

 

[sunsation288]

Thanks Kevin for sharing picture of how to shape hss

 

[Troutsqueezer]

Are you into the Model Engine making? If so, when I get into it, I may have to bend your ear quite a bit. I know that I'll have quite a few questions about some of the items and processes. I really need to get started into a solid hobby to pass my time instead of some days just not doing a darn thing.

I've built a few.

http://www.goldfinch-acres.com/Steam Engines.html

I noticed that Cedge posts on here sometimes. Now he is a master of the craft.

I know what you mean about the retired thing.
I thought when I retired I'd be hanging out in my hobby shed all day but no.... wifey had other plans and I have gotten lazier in my old age.