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Tool Making

R

roblchatster

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Mar 6, 2006
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Does anybody know of a good place to get High speed steel? Trying to make some tools and can not seem to find the material.
 
Try wholesale tools

Look at High Speed Ground Round Tool Bits. Try part # 2227-0020 for starters. $30 will get about 20 pre-hardened M2 HSS pieces that can be worked with grinders, but not saws and files. Others like ENCO, MSC have these, but M2 can not be hardened at home, like oil hardening can be. Link:
http://www.wttool.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc

Bill in WNC mountains
 
I buy barstock from ENCO as O1 drill rod, then use their round and square M2 or M4 Cobalt cutting bits held in the rods by either CA or a setscrew for hollowing/boring tools. The O1 is nicely workable and shapes rather easy with a Presto-lite or Mapp-gas torch.

McMaster-Car also has steel in various alloys up through V6 if you want to pay that much.

M
 
roblchatster said:
Does anybody know of a good place to get High speed steel?
Click to expand...
What size would be a good place to start. Small, say up to 1/2x1/2"x3" in M2 or even cobalt is easy to come by at almost any big industrial tool house (McMaster-Carr, Enco, etc).
 
Bill,
Thanks for the info.
Rob



aplpickr said:
Look at High Speed Ground Round Tool Bits. Try part # 2227-0020 for starters. $30 will get about 20 pre-hardened M2 HSS pieces that can be worked with grinders, but not saws and files. Others like ENCO, MSC have these, but M2 can not be hardened at home, like oil hardening can be. Link:
http://www.wttool.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc

Bill in WNC mountains
Click to expand...
 
Grizzly sells HSS tool bits w/ 5% cobalt for 2.95 a copy. Why buy all that extra HSS? I use 1/2" steel pipe or 1/2" square bar stock for holders, drilled and tapped for set screws to hold the tool bits. Even have a couple wood handles on my steel pipes.
 
Tool Steel

http://www.mcmaster.com/index.asp

Mc Master has many types of steel including High speed tool steel. You can get it from .029 to 1/4" thick and 1/2", 3/4", 1", 1 1/2", 2" and 6" wide by 12", 18" or 36".

It is not cheep.

Would D2 air hardened tool steel work as well.

This site also has a description of the types of steel and thier uses.

Myrel
 
Myrel Willeford said:
Would D2 air hardened tool steel work as well.
Click to expand...
Most steel you buy is unhardened (O,A,D,S7). The M2 (and the tool bits) are hardened and will require more grinding to get to shape, will hold the edge better. If you have access to a kiln, hardening and tempering isn't really all that difficult.Understand that most turning tools are rated hardness by the Rockwell C scale.
 
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