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12x24, 12x36, 13x40 LATHES

1. 12x36 HOME
2. FIRST LOOK
3. ROLLING STAND
4. SPECS
5. PRICING
6. HOW-TOS
7. LINKS
8. CNC (coming soon)

12x36 Lathes Insert Tooling

Turning leadscrews for our ACME leadscrew kits takes time, patience, and many grunts after frequently replacing inserts. Well, we started with the run-of-the-mill ENCO Hot Deals catalog special:

These are a great start-up set for the 8x and 12x lathes if you're cutting aluminum and to some extent even mild steels. For anything harder, they create too much agony to use. Really.

The inserts used are relatively cheap at $4.79 for C5 and C6 grade, but it just doesn't do the job correctly on our interrupted cuts.

Since J&L is known for its insert tooling (compared to MSC Direct and ENCO), we gave them a call and spoke with a technical sales guy. We explained the application, the material/hardness, and the machine used, and he recommended that we try either a triangle, trigon, or diamond tool (well, that's all of them! :). It really came down to the triangle shape or diamond and he was recommending that if we were to use the diamond, we could take advantage of the two other edges if we get another toolholder.

Since we've already tried the triangle shape (and that it give you only turning cuts, no facing), the diamond (rhombic) gives 5 degree relief perpendicular and parallel to the workpiece yielding the ability to turn and face. Plus, we could find a matching boring bar later (but this could be achieved with the triangle as well).

As it turns out, the Hertel SCRC was in stock, but the Kennametal SCLC was not. We'd have to go on the search on eBay or other outlets for the tool holder that would take advantage of the 100 degree angle edges. We would end up using these CCMT inserts:

We didn't realize that these were small inserts, but as it turns out, it did the job much better than the TCMM inserts and tooling combo from before. With the new setup (MSC/J&L catalog #):

05697883 Catalog Number: SCLCR082 Shank Width: 0.500 In., 1/2 Shank Height: 0.500 In., 1/2 Cutting Direction: Right Hand Overall Length: 3.500 In. $40.85
00444232 CCMT21.51ENK AC2000 SUMITOMO CARB TURN INSERT $6.95

We were able to take (during some initial tests) up to 0.060" depths of cuts per pass on the leadscrew - this is great! There was no visible shaking of the carriage due to extreme forces, the cutter held its edge, the chips curled nicely, and we tested this without coolant. So far so good and we're impressed.

We purchased this setup using the 25% discount promotion J&L had. You just had to order 5 items or more. The toolholder usually retails for over $50. Of course, we only realized after the sale ended that we could have purchased the Aloris indexable tool post kit using that promotion (or so we'd like to think). When the next one arrives, we'll be sure to get one. That'll save a lot of time for us during short production runs.

We'll post more updates here as we test more materials and cuts with this setup.