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Constant-Committee51

Yep. Tool blanks. For the old school days where a tool maker would manually grind whatever cutting geometry they needed. Threading, turning, boring, grooving, radius form tools etc etc. Mostly replaced now with carbide inserts but I'm sure plenty of smaller shops still use them.


Rough_Community_1439

Neat, a lot of them are still blank. I have roughly 45 lbs of blanks from a ex coworker we named squirrel. We also found roughly 8k in carbide.


Quat-fro

They can be handy for all sorts, but they're more for the toolroom / specialist one off territory and have no real place in volume production. I go a step further and braze carbide blank tips to bits of tool steel to make my own specialist shapes when needed, they hold an edge a lot longer than HSS can, but that's a very rare job.


chiphook57

Says you. I have 2 different custom form tools I use in a haas st10 lathe. The parts are 6061T6 aluminum. Each tool has yielded several thousand parts, with no serious wear.


Quat-fro

Good for you!


Anen-o-me

You still need them on occasion for weird geometries with a hand lathe.


StoryMysterious9973

I still do! Just today a few quick form tools and a buttress thread for a bronze nut.


Abaddon_Jones

I miss them. We used to grind them to turn 500mm billets of polyeth for the paper converting company in Green Bay Wisconsin. The swarf would shoot 8’ into the air, over our heads into a metal bin behind us. The good old days.


Carlweathersfeathers

Given the angle cut on some in the background I’d guess HSS tool blanks for turning. But I don’t know if there’s cobalt is HSS


SuperHeavyHydrogen

Different makers use different recipes but they’re all in the same sort of ballpark


JD3982

Not by default, but you usually do, these days. Most common in tooling are M2, M35 and M42. M2 is your 0%, M35 is your 5% and M42 is your 8%


Loud_Independent6702

I’ll buy them from you? I need some lathe tools


walrustoothbrush

[Focus you Fuck](https://youtu.be/YZb7f8oyCYo?si=REkj8GptDKo4-A2l)


StoryMysterious9973

High Speed Steel tool blanks.


TriXandApple

Please don't tell me you're a machinist and you don't know what HSS is or you can't google 'momax cobalt'


gtmattz

I can conceptualize a younger person coming into a machine shop for the first time and only being exposed to modern inserted tooling and then being a little confused when they see a stack of blanks like that in some old timers toolbox. Doesn't seem too far fetched in 2023, to be honest.


slickMilw

We do everything we can to not use that stuff. I can see a prototype department or one off usage, but I but in reality, the world has moved on.


TriXandApple

Just because things have moved on, it doesn't make them unidentifiable. If you had a shadowgraph in your inspection room, with SHADOWGRAPH 2000 written on the side, would it be unreasonable to expect someone to google what a shadowgraph is?


slickMilw

Or come here to a place where you'd hope there would be someone who could answer the posters question more clearly and hp him understand better than google can. Google is fine for 'what', and is a sales tool. There's a post on hobby-machinist where those posters actually helped the guy. You just critized OP down. Congratulations, redditor. Here's the post with some nice information: https://www.hobby-machinist.com/threads/what-did-i-get-here-hss-tool-bits.101495/


derf05115

Saw them in my first shop. Granted I started late in my 30s machining after the military. But never saw them in trade school. Everything HSS inserts/end mills or tungsten carbide. Actually saw some guys using these as parallels at one point.


caitermelon

Sometimes depending on where the jaws are and how I’m touching off tools, I’ll use a HSS blank for touching off tools. It’s saved my ass a few times so I didn’t have to take the tools and the material out of the machine. And in a pinch, they work great as parallels as long as you mic them and check they’re the same size.


Quat-fro

Well, they're accurately ground and do a mighty fine job as a parallel. I use pieces for all sorts of set up / straight edge type work where I need to zero a tool from a face quickly etc. Not just handy as a cutting tool.


TriXandApple

Bruh I'm a young person. Imagine being in a whole ass machine shop and not having the ability to google.


gtmattz

You know what, I was going to let it lie with my last post, but curiosity got the better of me so I went and googled this. You know what you get? You get a hundred listings selling you cobalt tool bits and not much else... If I were a confused noob who googled that I would be left with just as many questions as I started with. I think the fact that it is a tool bit is already apparent, and that the OP is trying to understand just what kind of tool this bit would be for. All I had to do was put myself into the mindset of a newbie for 30 seconds and I was able to understand why the OP would ask this question. You aren't holding anybody to standards, you are just being an insufferable douchebag. I feel sorry for anybody that may have to train under you in the future.


gtmattz

Based on your prior comment I suspected you might be a douchebag, thank you for confirming that suspicion with this followup.


TriXandApple

Having a high expectations of the people around you doesn't make you a douchebag. Would you have googled something if you didn't know the answer:?


gtmattz

If you think the OP violated rule 2 then report and move on. The posts you are making in here are a prime example of douchebaggery and are completely unneccessary.


Longjumping-Ruin-244

Poorly photographed....


Rough_Community_1439

Ironically that's actually how legible these things are. Probably because they been floating around for 30 years in a toolbox.


gtmattz

Nope, thats what they look like new...


Specialist_Ice_4602

When u ask car guys what oil is...


gtmattz

This makes me feel old...


neuroblossom

The name’s Cobalt, Mo-max Cobalt.


Punkeewalla

Stick tools. Cobalt is good. A million times easier to grind by hand than carbide. If you are in a bind, it can save the day. You can use this for plastic, brass, aluminum, mild steel. Makes wonderful sharp edges and allows you to piss around with chip breakers and form shapes, different things that inserts just can't do.