Ordering Carbide Equipment 4

[RFreund]

Please excuse my ignorance as I am not a mechanical engineer and know little about machining however I do appreciate the profession.

When a company that uses carbide say drill bits for there manufacturing or other work needs to order more drill bits, do they normally have a salesperson that they work through or do they try to do a generic internet search or do they turn to Grainger? I guess this may vary depending on the size of the company.
I guess really what I'm asking is does a website that exists to sell carbide only through there website have a chance or are most sales made through salesmen?
I apologize if this question does not belong in this forum section.

To give a sense of reference I would say if someone was looking to buy rebar they for a concrete foundation they would probably not Google search prices for rebar.

EIT

http://www.HowToEngineer.com

 

[arunmrao]

For special requirements,it is not advisable to use the web mail order system. You may Google to find dealers/manufacturers in your region,and then have their salesman visit you. He may be able to advise most suitable and economical tool bits as per your application,and an experienced sales man may also share details of similar end users. A very valuable input,you cannot get from internet order.

_____________________________________
"It's better to die standing than live your whole life on the knees" by Peter Mayle in his book A Good Year

 

[tomwalz]

I wrote this about router bits. Drill bits tend to work the same.

This greatly over-simplifies and makes huge assumptions but, hopefully, there is some value in it.

Tom Walz


Router Bits, Which Ones To Buy

Kinds of Router Bits
Steel - couple dollars
The least expensive kind of router bit to purchase. Comes in a variety of quality levels. Some can take a very good edge. Generally for beginning hobbyists, short runs or people who actually want to modify a bit. Generally cannot be sharpened without significantly changing the profile.

Carbide tipped, tungsten carbide tipped or tct – $10 or 20
Much longer wearing. Much better value. Can usually be sharpened satisfactorily. Combines the toughness of the steel shaft with the hardness of tungsten carbide.

Solid carbide - $50 - $100
Solid carbide rod capable of being ground into an amazing number of complex shapes. There is a trade-off between toughness and hardness with the carbide. The shaft has to be tough enough to handle the sideloading pressures. The cutting edges have to be hard enough to give clean cuts and long life.

Advanced material tipped router bits - $20 -$30
These are identical to the carbide tipped router bits except that an advanced material such as a cermet or a cermet / carbide blend is used. You the advantage of a tough shaft and a cutting head I can give up to 10 times the life of carbide. Currently only available on a custom-built basis.

Diamond tipped, pcd $1,000 - $2,000
A steel shaft tipped with carbide that has polycrystalline diamond on the cutting face. These can be run very fast and hold up under an incredible amount of wear. One of the drawbacks is that they need to be run fast or there is a problem with heat buildup and the tool gets burned to the point where the diamonds come out. Instances where operators reduce the feeds and speeds to reduce the operator workload are fairly common.

By User
Hobbyist, Price-Sensitive
May start with steel and stay there. It is pretty much all price.

Hobbyist, Not So Price-Sensitive
Start with steel and move to carbide or start with an inexpensive carbide. Influenced by price but also by advertising and by social media.

Artisan, Custom Furniture
Best quality carbide. Clean cuts are essential as the quality of the joinery is often a selling point. May use advanced material bits. May use solid carbide if they have a CNC router. Wants the best defined as cut quality. Tends to seek out professional level saw shops and follow their advice.

Small Shop, Cabinets
Cheap to good quality carbide brazed tools in handheld machines. Solid carbide in CNC machines. May use advanced material bits. Will be called on regularly by sharpening shops. Is somewhat influenced by advertising including recommendations from the saw shop rep. Wants the best cutting, lowest-cost router bits. Router bits service life is typically most important only in the negative.

Large Shop
Medium to good quality carbide, solid carbide in CNC machines especially if they have a product line. Is slightly influenced by advertising including recommendations from the saw shop rep. Wants the best cutting, lowest-cost router bits. Concerned with wear life because of the re-sharpening cost and the consequent profile changes. Very concerned that every router bit be identical in size to the previous router bit of the same pattern.

Manufacturing Plant
Solid carbide or diamond depending on the length and frequency of particular production runs . Slightly influenced by recommendations from the saw shop rep. Wants the best cutting, lowest-cost router bits. Concerned with wear life because of the re-sharpening cost and the consequent profile changes. Very concerned that every router bit be identical in size to the previous router bit of the same pattern.

By Material Being Cut
Clear, clean wood and simple plastics
Notty wood
Man-made materials; multi-oriented strands and resins with binders
Composites

There is a balance here between the initial cost of the tool and the length of the production run. You can use steel for a little while in notty wood. Since steel can take a sharper edge than carbide it may be superior at cutting through the knots but it will not have nearly the wear life

Man-made materials and composites will use carbide tipped, solid carbide or diamond tools depending on the wear properties of the material being cut. It also depends on the equipment being used and the form of the material being cut. Sheets of material in a cabinet operation with very long production runs will use solid carbide or diamond. An installer of those same cabinets may use a carbide tipped router bit in a handheld router.

Length Of Run
One-off pieces
Short runs, one day or so
Repeating short runs
Long runs
Manufacturing product line

Equipment Available
Handheld tools - typically less expensive bits because handheld equipment is very hard on router bits
Hobbyist router table - carbide tipped or solid carbide
Manufacturing shop router - solid carbide or diamond
Manufacturing plant machining center - diamond

Brand Name
Sophistication and involvement in:
Retail advertising - magazine ads
People buy a name they recognize. Whiteside Machine, carbide tipped, router bits were ranked number one for cut quality and value by Fine Woodworking Magazine

Retail advertising – big-box stores
Retail pricing, kind of packaging, placement of the items, in-store promotions, store brands

Small saw shops
Small saw shops like to sell router bits that people want to buy which involves brand name recognition. However the sales are generally made face-to-face and there is the option to explain the advantages and disadvantages of various lines. This type of sale is also heavily influenced by how the manufacturer treats the distributors and retailers.

Professional level saw shops
About the same as small saw shops. However they can make custom tools including custom tools using advanced materials.

Internet sales
People typically search for name brands. Heavily influenced by price. Price may be influenced by MAP (MAPP; Manufacturers Assigned Price or Manufacturer's Assigned Price Point or Manufacturers Advertising Price Point.)
Although few manufacturers realize it, this is also heavily influenced by the quality of the pictures and the quality of the information they offer when the prospective buyer is comparing brands.

Social media
Discussion forums such as Sawmill Creek, LinkedIn, etc. Heavily influential. Typically dominated by a very small percentage of posters and a huge number of lurkers. Typically the router bits recommended are heavily advertised router bits and are usually good router bits.


Thomas J. Walz
Carbide Processors, Inc.

http://www.carbideprocessors.com

Good engineering starts with a Grainger Catalog.

 

[MikeHalloran]

For generic tools, like twist drills, working generic materials, Grainger is a good source, especially if you need the stuff today or sooner. If you stock tools in a little depth, you might shop for price, and you might buy from a website.

If you are using replaceable insert tooling, you tend to pick one brand of toolholder for everything. That generally means you will buy one brand of consumables, or possibly 'equivalent' pieces if there's a price advantage. You may see a salesman from time to time, and you might play salesmen off against one another. You probably won't be buying from Grainger, unless they happen to carry your brand of consumables.

If you are cutting non-generic materials, then you will be carefully tracking your consumables performance and lifecycle cost, because you will be spending a _lot_ of money on consumables. You will probably work with just one tool brand, and their salesman will be on your speed dial, and he will also show up on a regular basis in person to keep you happy. Other salesmen will also call regularly. All of them will be very helpful with whatever problems you might have.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[TVP]

Excellent feedback from both Mike and Thomas!

 

[mfgenggear]

TVP

I agree, really can't to what was said.

excellent post by both

Mfgenggear

 

[mcgyvr]

we buy all our carbide tooling for our HAAS from mcmaster.com or mscdirect.com.
I find Grainger to typically be over priced and their websearch/narrow search functions are HORRIBLE.
In fact as I was typing this the fedex guy just walked by and I signed for a bag of 1/2" carbide end mills from mcmaster that we ordered yesterday.

Here is proof their prices suck.. mcmaster 1/2" carbide end mill was $70 USD... same end mill at grainger was $184 USD..

 

[MikeHalloran]

Grainger has never competed on price.
For a while they didn't compete on anything.
Now they compete on delivery if you are local.

Grainger's online catalog is not in the same league with McMaster's.
Nobody's is.



Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA

 

[RFreund]

Interesting and great insight. I appreciate the comments.
Is McMaster primarily an on-line resource or do they have regional salesman that come out to the office as well?

Thanks again!

EIT

http://www.HowToEngineer.com

 

[mcgyvr]

pretty sure mcmaster is just an online resource..They have inside sales people but thats about it as far as I know..
Who needs an annoying sales person anyways..

mcmaster and msc also offer very fast shipping (hence NO point in ordering from grainger ever).. There is rarely anything I order that doesn't arrive the next day.. They have a few strategically placed distribution hubs around the US.

 

[tomwalz]

Dear Sir:

Sorry I didn't have time to respond to your question directly a couple days ago.

There've been some excellent answers hear from others and I'm going to come at it from a slightly different viewpoint. This does not mean I disagree with any of the others, it just means I have a different background.

We are at the absolutely top end of the carbide tool industry. A big part of our market is building custom tools from advanced carbide grades. Another large part is selling production tools from advanced carbide grades. And then we also sell extremely well made tools from standard carbide grades.

Traditionally carbide grades are rated from C1 to C19. We sell a great deal of carbide under this rating system. We also sell advanced grades that don't really fit this rating system. As an example, our Super C grade has the toughness of about a C1-1/2 grade and the wear resistance of about a C3-1/2 grade.

Traditionally carbide either wore out or it broke. If you wanted tougher carbide to prevent breakage you moved down the C scale. If you wanted carbide that would give you much longer wear you moved up the C scale. This made sense during World War II when the U.S. Army and Buick developed the C scale. It makes considerably less sense now.

Advanced processes create much smaller grains and much more sophisticated binders. When you combine these factors with highly advanced material purity, much more sophisticated chemistries and overall greatly improved process controls you get materials that are both considerably tougher and considerably longer wearing than the traditional C grades.

If you get a really good sales rep from a major company they can be a real asset because they can help you define your needs and supply specific solutions. All too often they are just somebody who's paid to go out and sell whatever the company has. In any case the cost of having a salesperson on the road is easily $300,000 a year when you figure their salary, their travel expenses, the fact that they buy everybody lunch and so on. Somebody has to pay for that.

It helps if you understand that there may be about 5000 grades of carbide and related materials. This is according to the International Hard Metal Directory and is greatly dependent on how you define grades. Many of these grades have the same chemistry because the powder comes from the same supplier. However the performance can be hugely different depending on how the parts are formed and sintered.

The great majority of the suppliers determine carbide performance based on lab analysis. This may or may not have much to do with how the parts perform in the real world.

Many of the major carbide companies are in a heavy acquisition mode. We have had instances where we were using an excellent grade of carbide from a small manufacture. That small manufacture was bought up by a huge company. The huge company eliminated the grade we like and sold us a different grade as being equivalent. It was apparently equivalent in terms of chemistry as the chemistry was practically identical. However the performance was nowhere near what we had been getting.

McMaster Carr and Granger are both good suppliers. However they both by from whoever can supply them in the quantities they need, meet a very strict delivery schedule and do all this at a highly competitive price. This drastically limits the number of potential suppliers and the list of potential grades from the suppliers.

McMaster Carr and Granger will also change suppliers for whatever reason and sell the parts from the new supplier under the same designation as the old supplier. Part of what we do is build coolant filter systems and we use a motor from Grainger. We have aluminum frames custom built to mount the systems. Granger will substitute motors from other suppliers that are identical in every way according to them. However the mounting brackets tend to differ so the new pump mounting bracket may or may not match the holes in the custom frame.

This is easy to see with something this physical but much harder to see with something like carbide grades.

Putting a smidgen of titanium in a C-2 grade can greatly improve performance but it does add to the cost so you are unlikely to get any titanium in a C-2 grade from Grainger or McMaster Carr. The great majority of their customer base does not understand the advantages of adding a little titanium and thus does not understand the advantages of a slightly more expensive C-2.

Having said all this, it is obvious I would like to see everyone buy every tool from me as would Grainger, McMaster Carr and every sales rep who calls on you. Honesty compels me to tell you that I do not always use my own tools in my own shop. We have an application where we cut fire brick. Yesterday I bought the cheapest, coarse tooth, small sawblades I could from Home Depot because the fire brick is going to eat them up very rapidly.

So I really do think everybody should buy everything from me but I have to admit that there definitely is a place in the world for a whole spectrum of tools.

Three Rules I Would Suggest:
1. It is a good tool if, and only if, the person using it likes it. It does not matter what the sales rep or anyone else says. It is only a good tool if it works well in your operation.
2. Run your own tests in your own operation. If you dig deep enough there is no such thing as two identical operations.
3. Buy appropriate quality. We have a rework operation where we have to do grinding on very small parts. We use something like locking pliers to hold the parts while we put them against a bench grinder wheel or use a Dremel. We buy cheap locking pliers for this application because they are going to get ground on anyway.

On the other hand I buy the very finest braze alloy I can find. We sell tungsten carbide parts, braze alloy and pretinned tungsten carbide parts (parts with the braze alloy already applied - a.k.a. Tinned parts). AWS (American Welding Society) specifications allow for variation in chemistry of about + / - 1%. This can mean a range of about 20° F in a production environment. This is a huge range on preset automatic equipment. We buy and sell braze alloy that is manufactured tolerances of parts per billion (PPB) which means the temperature of our finished products varies over a range of about 0.1° F.

Well, that's it for now. I have 66 e-mails waiting for replies and a sales rep was coming shortly to take me to lunch. (I really don't need to talk to the sales rep. I would rather see the company spend the money on more inventory, so we get the parts we need when we need them.)

If you want to talk more you can give me a call.

Tom


Thomas J. Walz
Carbide Processors, Inc.

http://www.carbideprocessors.com

Good engineering starts with a Grainger Catalog.

 

[HDS]

I get Mcmaster deliveries the same day here. Grainger can do it as well if we ask. I've ordered from MSC at 9:00pm and gotten it delivered the next day.

All these guys are stocking distributors and great when you know what you want. They started out with catalogs and moved to the internet with is came along. Grainger also has store fronts at their warehouses. If you need help you go to the manufacturer or a manufacturers representative that has technical support. Even with the manufacturer if they have enough information on their webpage and a good webstore I'll buy it there and skip the salesmen.

for consumers it is like buying from Amzon as a distributor or Apple as a manufacturer.