A frequent issue raised on the forum is the experience of people, often beginners, who have purchased a set of brazed carbide turning tools and have had no luck with them at all. These tools consist of a shank, usually in a medium-carbon steel (or even mild steel) with a cutting tip of tungsten carbide brazed into a step on the end. They often come in sets of different types of tool usually in bright colours, photo 1. In practice, these are rarely a good choice of tooling for a beginner, for a number of reasons. Even the very best carbide tools (e.g. quality indexed carbide tooling) are less forgiving of less than ideal cutting conditions than highspeed steel tools; the brazed carbide ones are usually even more fussy. It can take a while to find the speeds, feeds and depths of cut that best suit any tool as there are so many variables - rigidity, material, lubrication and even the technique of the operator.
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