Where do you buy tooling?

[NeoMoses]

I kinda jumped into CNC machining about a year ago with little...err I mean no experience. I've learned a lot along the way, but one thing I still haven't totally figured out is where to buy good tooling.

Being a newbie, my first couple of purchases were from Mcmaster Carr, but I found them somewhat pricey. I then stumbled upon Enco, but I've been disappointed with their tooling quality. (I have yet to get a straight drillbit from them.)

Do you have any recommendations on where to buy tooling? I'm looking for good HSS and Carbide end mills, hopefully not too expensive. A place with a website would be nice, but if they only have a catalog available, that's fine too. Any recommendations?

[balsaman]

This is where I get mine:

http://www.toolandcutter.com/

Look at the bottom of the page under Promotions/surplus stock. They have 1/16" and 1/8" solid carbide endmills for $6.30 each canadian, thats around $4.00 USD.

Also they are in my town....

Eric

[wms]

Try here also. They have a House brand "Accu Pro" that's not to bad. Also lots of name brands and specials all the time. They will set you up a $500. open account over the phone. Free second day ups shipping. Their fill rate is almost 100 percent all the time.
Huge catalog, weeks worth of bathroom reading.


Http://www.mscdirect.com

[sundara]

MSC is a good place as WMS said. Also, if you're doing any router work on wood or plastics Onsrud has some really nice cutters. The carbide stuff can get a bit pricy as you'll find anywhere but you can get some good HSS single flute & straight cutters (for those wood & plastic applications) in the $5-$10 range.

www.onsrud.com

[CDignition]

The last shop I worked at we spent about 40K a year with MSC...they are OK to deal with. The Accupro Em's are OK, but the geometry aint always right on them...anything 3/16 or bigger should be OK...they are cheap enough,lol..

There is one thing you can do with MSC...buy the "USA" brand, or sometimes called "Grab Bag"...you can get good Melin, or TRW cutters for way cheap...we have done this several times and always came up on the good side..

[NeoMoses]

Is OSG a good brand of endmills to buy? I found a site that sells them relatively cheap, www.toolbuyers.com

I've never bought from them before, have any of you?

[Ken_Shea]

Neo, I personally can sympathizes with you on tooling, the number of make, design, manufacture and models are mind boggling. It would seem that there is no one place to purchase all one may need but as stated in previous post MSC is hard to beat, they have specific seemingly knowledgeable toll free support and always seem to ship full orders, that is a real plus as secondary shipping from other suppliers can raise the cost/time factor considerably. Here is another tip, if your friends (where do they all come from) want to use my old manual mill I hand then the made in China Stuff. I have also learned to never expect much from Chinese quality, it is not that they cannot make top quality but there market is for price conscience buyers, we have all bit on these haven’t we. No more cutters from China for me.

I also ask and read the experts here on the board what they would suggest or mention and then listen to them.

EDIT:
The only place Cheap comes before Quality or Success before work is in the dictionary.

[cadman]

Originally posted by NeoMoses Do you have any recommendations on where to buy tooling? I'm looking for good HSS and Carbide end mills, hopefully not too expensive. A place with a website would be nice, but if they only have a catalog available, that's fine too. Any recommendations?

I use OSG, Niagara, Dapra, Robb Jack, Richmill, Fullerton, Micro 100 & Bentz for 98% of my tooling needs. All of them have distributers all over the place and they all have websites, not sure about Robb Jack though. I learned early on in my machining career that cheap tools are for the most part junk. There are exceptions though. My lead times are extremely short and I absolutely must have tools within a day or sooner. Example: last week-10 layup molds for composite wind tunnel models in 3 days. So I only use distributers that are local, generally stock the tools I use most often and can get me tools that are not in stock fast.

OSG is pricey but almost no other tool can touch them performancewise. Very good tools. I get them from Richmill. About Richmill-they stopped selling their toolholders through distributers about a year ago. You buy directly through them and the pricebreaks the distributers got are passed on to you (25-40%). That applies to OSG tools too.
Niagara I get from McMaster. These are the high performance 45deg endmills for aluminum & non ferrous materials. Average price.
Robb Jack, Dapra & Micro 100 I get from US Shop Tools (usshoptools.com)
Fullerton I get from discount-tools.com. Good prices.
For more tools I suggest you go to Modern Machine Shop's website (mmsonline.com), go to the suppliers link and start looking. A good resource for tools.

[Mr.Ed]

I figured out that here at CNCZone we Europeans are by far outnumbered by members from the US and Canada. So...logically, allmost all posted links refer to those countries.

Are there ANY Europeans here in the forum (shure!) and if so, post your European links too !

It's quite understandeble that it's more convenient for me to get tools from The Netherlands or Germany, rather then getting them overseas. If i import them from the states our customs department adds something like 20 or 30% tax !

Right, enough said. I'll kick in my contribution on this :

http://www.fabory.nl

Start sending your European links !

Mr. Ed