Grinding HSS lathe tools - video

[Jon]

Grinding HSS lathe tools. By Artisan Makes. 18:39 video:

[Toolmaker51]

The advent of carbide tooling, via secondhand experience, advertising hype, dizzying array, and unnamed desire of metalworking without background, rendered HSS cutters passe, to a sizable group of newbies. It's misguided to think normal turning and form cutting require carbide edged tools.

While HSS cutters shear, carbide pushes material off. Satisfactory surface finishes at 32 RMS or better, depending on material, are possible with either; tuned setups can exceed that.

Properly ground HSS, capable in most materials below range of exotic alloys, still has terrific qualities. It's laughable to hear insistence on carbide, yet they'll ball endmill, corner round, woodruff and t-slot, center drill, drill, counterbore, countersink, ream and tap remaining features with HSS and not even think about it.

All that is without recognizing how HSS can be acquired in varied shapes, then sharpened, reused, completely altered, have totally different purpose on each end, until too small for clamping ...

[Frank S]

I use carbide inserts for convenience and speed but for fine close tolerances I don't mind wearing out a green rock wheel and sometimes even a pink or white one regrinding my odd shapes in HSS finishing them to a fine honed edge with a hand stone, all the way to the point that they can no longer be secured in a holder.