Slip Joint Springs

[javand]

I'll give them a try sometime! I've always used the hirocs as they are what the supplier I usually deal with sells, and most of my tooling is either kennametal or MA Ford.

The square die drills sold by KBC are even more expensive, but supposedly even better. I've got a 1" coming my way for a totally unrelated to knifemaking project. It hurts just thinking about how much that thing cost.....

So many outfits tooled up to make their own carbide cutters, because it was economical to do so, that there's a *LOT* of competition in that space now. As long as they use a good grade of carbide, coater, and have good QC, there's doesn't seem to be a lot of difference between them in most cases, just whether they make a configuration you want without it being special order and thus super pricey. I've noticed no difference between this outfit's end mills and any of the premium domestic brands. When it comes to larger end mills, I buy whatever I can find cheapest, new, on ebay usually, among the major brands; SGS, Kennametal, Monster, Niagara, Hanita (ok import, but they're some of the best overall), etc., and honestly can tell very little difference between the same geometry, in the same size and config. of any of them.

I have had some absolute shit HSS USA made end mills, but almost all the modern carbide has been good to very good. Although I'm using them with manual machining techniques and machines, albeit decent ones. I'm sure the differences become clearer in production CNC, especially with super high spindle speeds and ultra aggressive feeds. I've certainly seen some insane shit in some promo videos by certain vendors.

 

[Geoff Flato]

There are definitely many options out there. I've got a fair bit of iscar, Seko and Sandvik for the lathe as well.
There is one importer here in Canada that is actually owned by a Chinese guy. He must have some connections to get the good stuff, because its some of the cheapest tooling available, and by far the best quality I've seen come out of there. The cobalt HSS endmills perform every bit as well as anything I've used from Cleveland, dormer, ect