From some industrials Asia is always chasing after US & Europe. R8 is way slow to do most of work. I guess this is the reason. Here more & more using HSK50, 63A to do high speed, light cutting & high feed.
Our tool mostly done by 4, 5 axis to have lighten weight & good chip removing. EX WORKS pricing is maybe only 1/3 compare to US from my guessing, we have metric & inches problems, don't know too much in the states. Ex:
http://top17.soft-ware.com.tw/soft-w...ategory=103091 EMCF-125(5") @ 154.17, insert for alu. @ 5.9, pvd coated for steel @ 4.33, cvd coated for steel @ 4.83
Building private tool is fun, need skills. Not like nowadays, resharping end mills, drills, taps by small portable machine... =_= Losing job, but still need to sell some. It is trend though...