buying a lathe?

[asid61]

Originally Posted by Cory

If you have a Thinbit holder, what is causing you to struggle to find inserts for small grooving? .019, .029, and .039 are all stock sizes from Thinbit. You can get them from Western Tool, or McMaster will source them for you with a 1 week lead time if you call and ask for them.

I can find the inserts for it, but the holder itself runs $50+ if you don't make it yourself. Not to mention that the inserts, which are trapezoids of HSS, cost $15 each. For many teams that's not a problem, but we struggle with getting money to retool and suffer from inexperienced users breaking tools (the rate of which seems to be at an all-time low, which is good).