Hi Alan,

I bought cheap inserts at an Exhibition that turned out to be a poor deal; they were misshapen, probably manufacturing rejects, rather than weak.

I've also bought 'no-name' inserts from a couple of advertisers on this site and they were fine. (For my amateur needs.)

Dunno what kind of kit you have, but many of us don't have the wherewithal to get the best out of carbide which likes to run fast, hard and hot. Like 4x faster than HSS.

For me inserts last much better than HSS but I've damaged a few by blobbing at them with coolant. It turns out they are all or nothing when it comes to lubrication – hot carbide tends to crack if you just dab at it.

As always the choice depends on how much you want to spend. If 'value-for-money' doesn't matter, HowardT has listed some of the quality brands. I couldn't name either the best cheap brand or the cheapest quality brand. Perhaps someone else knows?

Dave

I've tried several different sources of inserts and have to say that in future I'll stick to named manufacturers. Those supplied by third parties without naming the manufacturer MAY be ok, but there is no guarantee that they always will be since they are free to change supplier at any point. I'll stick to using Sandvik and Korloy for production work.

I recently bought some DCMT tips off ebay that were £10.00 per box. I thought that they would be utterly useless but felt that at that price I needed to try them. The first box were marked Mitsubishi and regardless of whether they were real or fake, they were excellent. The second box were different but still worked well. Are they the best inserts? probably not but they have to be up there with the most economical.

Regards.

David.

PS

At some time I will set up a test and compare them against some of the branded ones I have.

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Edited By Niels Abildgaard on 02/04/2017 14:04:42