I have European made HSS toolbits as well as some from ArcEurotrade, can't say I have found much difference. I tend to use carbide tipped tool for roughing and HSS for the finishing cuts.

Thor

Have accumulated a selection of various sizes and lengths of HSS toolsteel, agree with Blue Heeler they make excellent parallels for the mill, irrespective of their country of origin. On a more serious note I find the ARC HSS toolsteel is excellent quality for the price.

Dave W

Apart from some small pieces of cobalt HSS that I bought from Cromwell all my stuff is old British stock likely made many decades ago. I acquired most of it at least 20 years ago and it was probably old then. Is British HSS made in the 1940’s – 1960’s any good? Some of it has strange trade names on it, others are unmarked.

Having been in industry all my working life I have a very good stock of quality of HSS, all top quality brands and had no need to try the foreign stuff until five years ago, just before I retired. I wanted to make some injector cone reamers and had no stock of 3/16 round HSS so I bought some from Chronos. I cannot remember what I paid for it but it was cheap, I got about a dozen pieces two inches or thereabouts long. To save grinding time I rough turned them on a little Hardinge second op lathe, short bed, no tailstock and basic cross slide, the HSS turned very easily with a carbide tip, high revs and light cuts, I roughed them all out in less than half an hour, afterwards I tried a piece of 1/4 dia Old stock Eclipse HSS and found it considerably tougher to machine, so there you are, it’s horses for courses, for brass etc cheap stuff should be more than ok but for tougher steels and cast iron I would delve into the box of old stock

I prefer to use ground flat stock for parallels. Get a 500mm length and cut it in 4. Cheaper than HSS and good enough for my level of precision.

I have no idea where my HSS blanks come from. When buying I *usually* buy from a distributor I recognise, at a price that looks keen but not suspiciously cheap when compared to other offerings.

It's only in the last couple of years I've even thought of HSS as a differentiated product – I used to think it was all pretty much the same, like, say, supermarket porridge oats or 80 gsm printer paper.

I've got maybe 15 or so 1/4" tool bits in use at the moment, and I've not bought any for about a year. Of these, I'm aware of only one that I think is inferior – not soft but sort of micro-crumbly at the cutting edge. If I could remember where I bought it I'd complain…

Edited By Mick B1 on 29/06/2019 18:00:51