Steel turning inserts offer major benefits

The new HCX1125 inserts for turning feature WNT's Mastertool Dragonskin coating system, which, when combined with the grade development that has taken place, is resulting in exceptional improvements in tool life compared to all other inserts currently available. "The results that our customers are seeing are simply staggering," says Tony Pennington, managing director, WNT (UK). "Ten-times existing tool life is not uncommon, and with this we are then able to work with customers to find the optimum balance between tool life and productivity in order to generate maximum cost benefit for the customer." Addressing the fact that customers are often reluctant to change machine programs 'just to test a new carbide grade' WNT (UK) is setting them a challenge. That is to leave feeds and speeds exactly as they are now and simply put the test insert, available free of charge from WNT (UK), into the machine. The Sheffield-based cutting tool specialist is confident that customers will see a dramatic increase in tool life straight away. Typically, customers are witnessing five-times tool life, then, with input from WNT (UK)'s team of skilled and experienced technical sales engineers, this figure is being increased to as much as ten-times tool life. "The improvement over existing carbide and coating technology is putting other carbide inserts in the shade," says Mr Pennington. "Without changing anything apart from the insert customers are benefitting from greatly increased tool life. Then with our technical support they are able to stretch these advantages even further, and reduce both component part costs and consumable tooling cost at the same time." The new grade operates in the ISO P25 range and its development was focused on consistency and tool life. Every aspect of the carbide and coating process was reviewed, with the culmination a range of inserts available in a wide variety of standard ISO shapes that will deliver major improvements across the steel cutting application area.