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Price is not my criteria at this point in life....a quality brand is.  Just looking for what brand is good these days before I buy.

Thanks!

Bri
 
McMaster doesn’t usually list brand. You just pick type. Carbide, HSS coated or noncoated.  I never recognize the stamp or brand name of bits. They are always long lasting. I buy uncoated HSS short length bits mostly.

MSC lists brands. It’s machinist supply. You can’t buy Harbor Freight stuff there. It’s all good quality. Usually a small American manufacturer.
 
I have a life-long collection of Greenlees, ranging from 1/2" to well over 1", as well as some oddball rectangles.

You still have to drill the pilot hole....sometimes 1/4", more often 3/8".

Hence my question of best brand choices in 2019 for aging twist bits.  <g>

Bri

 
john12ax7 said:
You can also get punches for the smaller holes, then switch to greenlee for the bigger ones.
+1  Roper Whitney old school...

JR

shopping
 
I have both Hertel and Interstate jobber length bit sets I got from MSC. Both are good. I prefer screw machine bits.
 
JohnRoberts said:
+1  Roper Whitney old school...

JR

shopping

I had forgotten about those Roper Whitneys, but perhaps of limited use due to the limited depth of the "jaw" (think of a 2RU rack panel), or knocking holes into a prefabbed metal box with flanges.

Bri

 
I never had any formal training working with machinery. Started with mini lathe and mini mill. Grew out of those within a couple months. Now have in the shop heavy duty Matsuura CNC mill, Hardinge Omniturn CNC lathe, and two Mori Seiki heavy duty CNC lathes. Without experience of working with manual machines I don't believe could actually learn to work on CNC with different metals and feeling them. I don't use any CAM programs. Our mill is Centroid retrofitted, so it is completely conversational, which is a luxury--the part of any difficulty can be programmed in a couple hours max if there are lots of linear, and/or arc moves. Usually, I don't spend more than half an hour for any microphone/electronics related part.

Lathes are easy--I program them with G-code. It took a few days to learn and get a grip, but not hard, though more time consuming. Now retrofitting all our lathes with Centroid, so the programming and setting up time is going to be minimal...

All of that is not hard as long as you know concept of speeds and feeds and have good understanding of manual machining and feeling of the tools and metals. Once you are on the other side of the fence you can see that all of that is actually pretty easy... by far easier than to learn any instrument to play:)))

Best, M
 
I just got a 12” saw blade to go in my 14” abrasive wheel chop saw.  The blade is for soft metals and is rated for 6000RPM. The saw spins at 4500 RPM. The blade also has a 5 degree negative rake angle so it doesn’t pull the piece into the blade. I’m getting super clean straight cuts in aluminum.  It took a long time to figure that out. It makes me happy.

I think next I’ll try some sheet steel. A small brake is cheap and a hand shear also isn’t expensive. For not much more than $100 I could have both. That’s a good start towards custom enclosures.
 

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