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Carbide Cutters for Easy Core

David Propst

David Propst

Joined
Mar 17, 2005
Messages
83
Likes
104
Location
Granite Falls, NC
Has anyone done or seen a direct comparison to the Oneway Carbide cutter to the Hunter KorePro? I suspect the Hunter is better, but is it $150 better? I’m not a production turner, but ease and safety are important. Thanks!
 
I have Oneway style carbide cutters and one KorPro carbide cutter. I only use the KorePro, switching it to the size blade I want. It just works better than the stock or carbide one that fits the knifes. If I had deeper pockets or cored more bowls I'd have KorPros on all four knives. So I'd say they are $150.00 better. I don't know about safer but they are that much easier to core bowls.
 
The expensive part of making them is the grooves on the bottom to seat the cutter. I was looking into finding cutters for the Oneway system that didn't have that point on them. To me, that is worst design ever for a coring tool because it really slows down the cutting. I did have Oneway send me one of their standard cutters that didn't have the point ground on it. It was square, so I tapered the sides down to the blade, so wide at the nose, and narrow where it met the coring arm, and put a 70 degree bevel on it. It cut FAR better than their standard cutter, and you didn't have to take it off the arm to sharpen it, just a coarse diamond hone to raise a new burr. I did talk to AZ Carbide about making or getting some similar ones so I could experiment again with carbide, and apparently they are molded now with the point already on it. They said I could do a minimum order of 300 pieces and get the shape I wanted. Half way tempted. Every one I have talked to about the Hunter system says pretty much the same thing, it way out performs the Oneway carbide tip. I did ask Oneway about getting a carbide one that was not shaped, and they told me pretty much the same thing as AZ carbide, the tips are cast with the tip in place. Their cutting tip shape makes no sense to me at all.....

robo hippy
 
robo hippy said:
The expensive part of making them is the grooves on the bottom to seat the cutter….

robo hippy
Click to expand...
What makes cutting the grooves so expensive when making a metal holder that mounts a carbide cutter (like Hunters)? Seems the grooves would be easy to cut into metal holder with a CNC machine using a pointed bit. I suspect the high price has to do with the limited run rather than the milling cost.

Strange a company like Oneway, who can design & make an entire lathe, can‘t easily make a better cutter design for a reasonable price. Wonder if more people contacted Oneway to show interest would help any, or maybe see if Hunter might be interested in supporting a group buy from here?
 
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I don't core enough to make the investment, but the comments from other members here on the forum have been strongly positive about the Hunter tip's performance, and that it's worth the cost.
 
I did contact Oneway about their cutter bit and left them with the question, how much sales to you lose to Hunter with his coring bit, and of course, told them that the Hunter bit, according to every one who uses it, works far better than the Oneway bit. I also asked them if they might want to make my grinder rests. They said they would look into it. I still get one or more requests a week for them.

robo hippy
 
robo hippy said:
I did contact Oneway about their cutter bit and left them with the question, how much sales to you lose to Hunter with his coring bit, and of course, told them that the Hunter bit, according to every one who uses it, works far better than the Oneway bit. I also asked them if they might want to make my grinder rests. They said they would look into it. I still get one or more requests a week for them.

robo hippy
Click to expand...
Your grinder rest was a game changer for me. I’m so glad I got one while you were making them. Someone could sell the heck out of them.
 
David Propst said:
Has anyone done or seen a direct comparison to the Oneway Carbide cutter to the Hunter KorePro? I suspect the Hunter is better, but is it $150 better? I’m not a production turner, but ease and safety are important. Thanks!
Click to expand...
The oneway carbide is not sharp it is just a chunk of flat carbide ground to shape, it takes more power to make a core, I turn on a 1 1/2 horse jett 1642 and had to sharpen the oneway hss cutter every core and the cutters did not last very long- i spoke with oneway about their carbide and they told me it would not work as i would need more power to use the carbide-

i got the korpro and have turned 100's of cores with no problem with power, ease of use etc.... the coring goes alot faster and smoother, so fast you have to clear the chips faster than you realize- I can make a core in just a few minutes whereas before on some harder wood i would have to stop in the middle and resharpen (1 core)

we turners don't seem to mind spending $150 on a tool, but because the korpro is small some say its expensive- I don't see it? it takes as much or more work to make a good tool and the korpro is proven to work great-

oneway HSS cutter=$40
oneway carbide cutter=$60
Korpro cutter-$30.00 (2 sided flip and get a new edge)

I now core all my bowls I didn't before because it was too much work-
 
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I don't have the KroPro cutter but plan to at some point. My friend who cores more than I do has one and he's been amazed at how well it cut and how long it lasts. He swears he's gone through burls with rocks and lots of hardwood cores and it's still going strong.
 
It shouldn't be any surprise about the Korpro cutter. It's a high positive cutter of the type designed for use in cutting aluminum in machine tools. Production turners have known about this for decades with cutters made of HSS. In more recent times with the better grades of micro grain carbide the cutting edges can literally be razor sharp.

A coring systems path is not hand guided, the mechanism determines the path. The user only determines the feed rate. That's an important thing to understand. These type cutters are almost impossible to hand guide.

The advantage of these cutters is obvious. Almost no tear outs in difficult wood, practically no finish sanding needed, no need for frequent sharpening with special jigs. no riding the bevel, minimal skill needed, etc, etc. But the bottom line is they can't be hand guided because of their aggressiveness. They can be guided with follower templates or more easily with CNC. And we all know how CNC turning went over with this group.

It seems odd to me that all forms of modern technology that we hardly dreamed of decades ago, zoom meeting and so on, are readily accepted in teaching traditional methods of turning. But methods of turning where the design of the object is primary over the turner's hand skills are not accepted.
 
I really don't know what you are talking about. Yes the KorPro is on a tool with a set radius with that radius set to cut a semicircular path without much variation. But if Mike put that cutter on a shaft you could guide it any where you want. It might be better suited for spindle work. Again the main difference between the KorPro and the other cutters is that it cuts not scrapes and that cutting is more aggressive than scraping. I'm sorry Doug that having computer skills enabling a machine to cut what you dream up is not and for me never will be turning. I do have a couple of those machines and they are really fun to use but they are not turning.
 
Let me try and explain this to you again. The Korpro insert is mounted flat to take advantage of its free cutting ability. These inserts were originally designed for aluminum cutting and are mounted flat in machine tools where the cutter path is not hand controlled. To my knowledge this the only Hunter tool that has high positive inserts that are not tilted downward in their mounts. By tilting downward with a large cutting radius (round inserts) their aggressiveness is lessened making them more controllable for hand turners.

When I use these diamond shaped inserts like the Korpro's in automated turning (CNC or tracer lathes) the cutting is done at the small radius point. That gives the advantages I mentioned. But there is no way a tool with a .016" nose radius can be hand guided to cut a smooth surface needing little to minimal sanding. Exactly the same as ornamental turners have done for hundreds of years with small radius cutters that are not hand guided. I suppose you could make the argument OT work is not woodturning, maybe it should be banned from the AAW, huh? CNC is getting more common in OT work. Bill Ooms work has been featured in the journal, have you complained to the journal editor about that since it isn't turning?

If you like hand turning that's wonderful. I don't. From previous discussions I believe the AAW definition of turning is hand held tools. That's contrary to a good portion of the rest of the world's definition of woodturning.

CNC may be creeping into woodturning. Ten years from now I expect it will be common and acceptable. Recently there have been some postings with laser embellishment of turnings, I bet those weren't hand held and hand guided.
 
I do believe that the Hunter Straight Tools have the insert mounted flat but It are probably best used tilted. That little .016 nosed cutter mounted on a shaft with a handle surely could be used exactly for what you say it can't be used for and do its job well. I think it would work well for finials and icicles where I use a 1/16" gouge. I have worked with carbide tools for 50 years now and the differences of where they started and where they now are is amazing. I see no reason why someone could not mount wood on a CNC lathe and make a bowl and without telling about it who would know. Does it matter? Not enough for me to continue with this. I'm happy I bought a brand new to the market lathe yesterday and can't wait for it to get here :D
 
David Propst said:
Has anyone done or seen a direct comparison to the Oneway Carbide cutter to the Hunter KorePro? I suspect the Hunter is better, but is it $150 better? I’m not a production turner, but ease and safety are important. Thanks!
Click to expand...
Since I have cored so many bowls over the years I will say the only time I found the carbide bit to make a big difference was coring very hard woods like live oak, pecan or any wood that was dry enough to give trouble. Now the hunter cutter that's a totally different animal. I have ordered mine because I do core quite a lot because I sell quite a few very large bowls 17 to 18" that can give me a nice 14 x 5 core. The regular one way bits are fine but they need to be sharp or the time to core is almost doubled. To be able to core 45 bowls before turning the hunter bit. NO COMPARISON definitely worth it to me. Especially as I get younger LOL. The one time cost of having the hunter holder for your one way coring knife is worth it because from then on the hunter bits are about $30. (for now). Again I core many large bowls if you don't the one way will be fine for you as long as you learn to sharpen the bits effectively other wise the $37.98 for a new bit get's old also.
 
Karl Loeblein said:
What makes cutting the grooves so expensive when making a metal holder that mounts a carbide cutter (like Hunters)? Seems the grooves would be easy to cut into metal holder with a CNC machine using a pointed bit. I suspect the high price has to do with the limited run rather than the milling cost.

Strange a company like Oneway, who can design & make an entire lathe, can‘t easily make a better cutter design for a reasonable price. Wonder if more people contacted Oneway to show interest would help any, or maybe see if Hunter might be interested in supporting a group buy from here?
Click to expand...
Karl I agree completely that the major cost was a very likely a limited run. Unless they were ready to pay for 250,000 bits or more for their first run, the cost can and usually is dramatically higher in cost.
 
My KorPro cutter came in and I have used it twice already, I am not used to seeing curlies come off my one way coring knives just powder from the scraper type bits that come with the oneway. It cuts much faster and that lends it to need to clean the knife more often because it cuts much faster than I am used to. No doubt I really like it over the original bits because they cut well. I cored a 14 x 3 inch core from an 18" x 8" money bowl partially dried pecan, no problem. much faster than before just need to clean more often. Which is no problem at all.
 
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