New Materials for Cutting and Drilling

[desmo11225]

For many years HSS High Speed Steel has been the king in terms of cutting , sharpening and drilling tools but these days there are plenty of other choices with cobalt steel , molybdenum, chrome and nickel steels becoming available, they are more expensive but not too expensive, I am long retired so not in the middle of things so to speak .
Would any of you who are right at the heart of things be prepared to give your thoughts on this subject and what are the best picks at the moment, cost wise and durability , a much higher quality steel to use but lasting a lot lot longer. All your thoughts would be much appreciated. All the Best
desmo 11225

 

[WorkshopChris]

Personally still cant go wrong with quality HSS tooling for both drills and smaller lathe tooling.
Colbalt drils are ok for stainless.
Solid carbide or inserts dont tend to come into there own until feed rates increase as with cnc machinery, or the machines are big enough for heavy deep cuts.
Solid carbide drills are good for drilling out broken taps but are better suited to machine drilling than had as they dont like any flex and will snap given the slightest chance.
Will be interested to see what experiences others have.

 

[hotrodder]

Cobalt is a HSS steel [/pedantic] typically a modification of the moly based M2 (most common HSS?) which itself replaced earlier tungsten based HSS. The two common flavours are m35 and m42 although the better quality brands usually refer to m35 as HSS-E and avoid making a deal about "cobalt" leaving that to suppliers of cheapnese tat

Adding some cobalt to M2 HSS increases hot hardness so can run slightly higher speeds and/or have slightly better life. Or, if you try and drill stainless too fast with not enough feed they don't melt/blunt as quickly after work hardnening the hole to the point where you need carbide to finish making it. M35 / HSS-E is still pretty tough, m42 a bit more brittle but still a lot tougher / less prone to chipping than carbide

Unsuprisingly cheapnese cobalt drills etc are tat compared to good quality M2 HSS. As said most of the 'new' stuff is as much about allowing heavier cuts and/or higher speeds and shorter cycle times. Similar deal with coatings which are usually an utter waste of money or at least fairly pointless for use in a cordless drill or toy lathe / something old that doesn't do eleventy million rpm

 

[graffian]

Cobalt is a HSS steel [/pedantic]

I always think that;-)
I am not sure I have any no cobalt high speed lathe tools, and I started buying the stuff secondhand in
the 70's, so hardly new.
I like carbide.

 

[Rocketman]

The one good thing that has come with time is carbide cutter/drills are so much cheaper than they were back in the 90's in relative terms.

 

[Hood]

For taps, drills and milling cutters powder metal can be a good choice, bit more expensive than standard HSS-E or M42 but last longer and can get close to Carbide in some applications. The advantage they have over carbide is they are more forgiving of an older machine and do not chip or snap as easily as carbide.