Is this the Most Efficient Way to Buy Cutting Tools? | Machine Shop Talk Ep. 101 

Thanks for taking up this topic Ian! The ability to easily order tools, tool holders and even machines is often the key to success in the workshop. We at HAIMER have heard this again and again in recent years and for this reason we rolled out our own HAIMER SHOP for Germany and Austria in October. The US and other countries will follow in 2024. Based on our initial experiences, it's clear to say that providing data and marrying traditional organisational structures with new digital sales channels is a challenge. And it keeps us busy every day. But in the end, it is such an important capability that manufacturers and retailers simply have to offer. After all, it's almost 2024!

I could only get in 4:00 minutes before reaching full... I've owned & run businesses off & on for 40 yrs. I'm officially 'ancient' now, but not inert. I took up machining almost 10 yrs ago, shortly after my wife went to work for MSC. All of the businesses I owned & operated depended on both tools & materials & all were pre Internet, hell, pre-computer. If you are having problems finding tooling & inserts in this day & age, you are not trying very hard. Scenario 1: You break tooling. (I'm not going to address breaking an insert & not having more. If you are so shoestring budget wise you can't buy 50 inserts at a shot, quit now & get a job working for someone. I just priced inserts for a new boring bar I'm looking at. Price for 10 was X; in 3 minutes I found qty 50 for 2.5X. Buy enough you have spares, you're running machines which cost 10's of 1,000's.) Ok, broken tool. Call your sales contact at one of your suppliers. You don't have a contact at any suppliers? Not MSC, McMaster, nobody? Why the f not? You may not buy much, but set up an account, make a contact BEFORE it's an emergency. Buy their sales stuff for you operation, if budget's an issue, a machine shop needs a diverse group of things from gloves to replacement machines, shop for deals if you have to, but have an ace in the hole, a big supplier when you need something to keep production going. Is paying 30% more an issue if you can get it tomorrow & get back to work vs next week? No. If you get caught with no contact, go to effing Amazon. The only cheaper place you can get stuff is China via eBay, (lots of low dollar sellers now have US warehouses.) Scenario 2. You need tooling or inserts & it's not an emergency. You want US/Euro made? Big name supplier... face it. Small places may be better price, but will be hit & miss on selection. Manufacturers rarely sell direct. It's the deal they have w/ companies like MSC, McMaster, Grainger, etc, who buy 1,000's of pieces of product. It's called, "Don't compete with your customers, stupid." Been that way for a long time; auto parts industry used to be better, they've went to chit. Industrial still has structure. Oh, here's an inside scoop: small size distributors buy from MSC, McMaster, etc., they can't buy enough to buy direct; manufacturers in US/Euro typically have minimum qty rules. You want import/Chinese/Indian? Might as well buy the same stuff the big names buy & resell or re-label & resell. If you have the time to look, (which I do, being ancient), here's the kinds of deals you can find. I'm pricing & sourcing a boring head & bars. A head & indexed bar set is too pricey for me. MSC has best price on head & shanks. Bars are another issue. One bar, ¾ × 5.9" eBay: bar + 10 inserts $24.00 free S&H, 18-21 days Ali Express: bar $2.04, free S&H, 18-22 days. Same identical bar. Different Chinese manufacturer. The Ali Express deal was a 1st time customer buy. Other AliExpress pricing was as low as 18.00 for same package as eBay, identical. If you're a small shop or starting out, you foolish to get hung up on brand name stuff in simple indexed tooling & inserts. eBay can be gold mines for inserts if you're looking for brand names. Last time I stocked up, I found Mitsubishi inserts in 20 & 40 qty for peanuts, I wanna say < 0.20 ea. I also found another big name I bought 20-30 of for similar price, but can't recall name, 'cause I'm ancient. A few days ago, a different length boring I found came w/ 11 Sandvik inserts, 1-C5 & 10-C4's. It was the best priced combo of bar & inserts, w/ a bonus insert! I also have some generic inserts I bought from China via eBay. I have all my inserts mixed together in a box I made w/ little welding rod posts, so I don't have to dig through drawers looking. I have pieces if foam on the groups of posts & sections for different shapes, grades & new vs used, (2 of 3 points good, but changed for different grade.) I use a red paint pen & mark blown out points, if I put them back in inventory, (saves a lot of squinting) Here's something I discovered 'cause I'm ancient & can experiment: don't be afraid to use a diamond emory board on an insert to hone it up, new or used. You'ĺl be surprised at the difference. Msg me, if you want to pick my brain on biz issues. Started my 1st auto repair biz at 15. Been through a lot in 70 yrs. Biggest fault of colleges & trade schools is they teach you a skill/trade, but don't teach you squat about running a biz, even in a field where MOST go into biz for selves. GeoD

Thanks! I'm volunteering on the restoration of the USS Texas and paying for lathe inserts out of my own pocket. A resource like this helps.

Used to work as a prototype machinist where availability of every tool and the speed I could get it was absolutely critical. Biggest hold up I've ever had as a machinist is exactly what this video is addressing- at least in America, tool companies are HORRIBLE with websites. It's 2023 guys- I don't even want an excuse anymore. I shouldn't have to talk to human beings to buy my tools. I know the helix angle, the carbide grade, the nose radius, etc on what I want. Put your inserts on websites exactly like that and make ordering inserts and tools that everyone uses straightforward and quick. I've done everything from hard grinding ceramics with diamond tooling, to nickel superalloys used in jet engine manufacturer, to exotic tool steels to weird elements like pure molybdenum. Occasionally you need a tool seller to find something specific for really weird things in mass production. But usually I have a good idea of what I need. Just make buying it quick!!! This is why I normally dealt through MSC- at least they have a half-functioning website. They still don't have things like a basic checkbox for split point drills though! It's amazing how horrible buying straightforward tools in America as a machinist is. There's just no excuse for this anymore and there hasn't been for years

I got into the undustry in 2006 - THIS has been my biggest complaint. Distributors and tool dealers are soooooo slow. The knowledge is dwindling to the point where I typically know a lot more than they do. Therefore, they add nothing other than cost and complexity when all I need is a small quantity of tools. Hope this changes things.

I have used the tech met stuff. The inserts are high quality and the service is excellent.

It’s almost as if pricing is a liability to some suppliers, and they would rather groom the consumer into just ordering and paying when the product shows up rather than supply answers to the most asked questions. Price Time availability Location

thanks for your time ian

Carbide Depot, great to work with and the website isnt too bad. Charles

As my own website developer (after hiring 4 others who did not have the skills they hyped they had), doing a woocommerce or product site to handle all that tooling would take a huge crew a long time to get a site like that to work. It is awesome that you found a source that took the time and effort!

Spot on I can’t believe how hard it is to buy anything here in Canada. Deboer is pritty good but limited. Any of the tool suppliers with salesman is a multi hoop jumping process and usually have part of your order and you have to go elsewhere to get the rest or they offer something other than what you want

I order my 99% of my tools and tooling from pt solutions, I've used many others in the past. I can type in what I'm looking for it shows me how many they have and how many the manufacturers have. I've learned from experience that if you stay with a supplier the more you buy the lower pricing you get.

The dorks at harvey tool are the worst, they claim easy ordering and then you cant order on their own website and you have to deal with the run around from vendors that dont care at all. But on all of harveys marketing they claim fast shipping in stock blah blah blah but they dont even sell stuff, then it takes 3 weeks when you go through the "vendor".

Ive actually bought a few tools with inserts off of Amazon with the mindset that it's cheap and if it breaks im not out a lot of money. The shell mill actually works very well . Thank you for this. We do better when making things amd not slogging through websites on insert searches.

Thank you. I have experienced exactly what you were talking about. I will certainly try Techmet.

I worked as a local cutting tool distributor for many years, this is not a problem in my state. You call in the office and get pricing and availability on basic stuff right on the phone. Stock is a much bigger issue as these companies don't make huge amounts of profits to justify stocking hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of carbide in thousands of brands/grades. They will likely sell you something similar they stock for a competitive price.They likely will not stock generic no name inserts for 5$ each, and will have something similar like Iscar for 8$ on the shelf. The sales people are high quality as well and do more than just punch in EPD #'s. They walk customers through everything the need to order the correct tools (there is often a lot to know/usually lots of questions they need to ask). Some even go as far as helping companies processes engineer ways to make their parts, make huge increases in production, and can bring in free "test tools". Also don't use outside reps for stuff you need quoted and ordered right away, call the office and use the people who are at a CPU all day doing quotes/orders.

I have been through the same problem, only Three employees. Limited suppliers can or are willing to sell inserts for older tooling off the shelf. Manual machines only, and they are worked hard, i decided to try chikny imported inserts to keep us going, Now i buy 6,8,10 boxes same cost of (One branded box) of inserts at a time for roughing and they excellent, for roughing (superb), but i still keep to branded for finishing passes. your speed and feeds are higher, see how it goes. I would prefer to buy a brand name, but the percentages/performance is financially major.

Thank you for the information. I enjoy your shop talk episodes 13:47

I'm glad I have a great supplier, and don't have to deal with this!

Ohmagurd its soo friggin frustrating jumping through their stupid friggin hoops to find out you can't even order direct. It's made me want to never use a particular brand ever again. It's pissing me off just thinking about it right now. And I'm a chill dude I swear, that's how bad it is.

Cool! I didn't know, will shurly have a look.

I’m a big fan of buying direct from the website, I wish we could do it more up here. I do buy a bit of deBoer, I’ve never used the brand you mentioned.

Completely different here in India. I want a certain endmill, an insert, or even a specific grade of any tool, I can goto a local store, qnd buy it right away. If its not available, ill get it next day with an overnight charge of 5$. Or if i wanna buy in a quantity, i can goto a b2b marketplace, call the supplier and get catalogue and pricing and purchase right away, sometimes in a single call. But with some businesses, its like i make a request, they send me a quote, i negotiate and agree and raise request for pi, they send me pi, i make payment and share details, they verify payment, and queue for dispatch, then they dispatch and share the cargo details and i reach the cargo office at described time with my stamps and letterhead and recive the product. Such a stupid thing. Also its a problem when you cannot afford to stock everything whereas a big company can keep a stock even through a long purchase cycle. Though here we may not have an extreme variety of item but things are readily available and are priced correctly. And shipping is good and fast over here.

All those crappy sales reps better be looking for a new line of work because AI is gonna crush them. I order maybe $15,000 of tooling a year and the reps treat me like I’m a nuisance. I don’t even care about the price. I just need what I need when I need it. I don’t have enough time to do my work, I definitely don’t have time to spend my whole day badgering reps.

Is this a local issue or the same in all of The U.S ? Here in Sweden and i assume most part of Europe the major brands have their own webshops with pricing and inventory, 95% of the time i have the Tools delivered the following day if i order before 3 PM. Sandvik,OSG,Ceratizit,ISCAR,SECO,Walter,AURA are a few i order from that have their own sites, some smaller brands are sold by distributors with their own webshops. The distributors without webshops are almost extinct..

Dude one hundred perfuckingcent. Just put them on your website and let me buy them…

What tool is it?

Out of stock. Comes to mind. Or back ordered after they take your money.

Do you not have a local tooling house? In Ca we use Western Tool. If they don't have some thing we need in house, they can get it for us. We make one call to tell them what we need and they send us a quote with price and lead times. Spending time getting 3 quotes from three different places is just not worth the effort and time involved. Any savings to be had is burned up in time on the phone or sending emails.

One man shop. Sorry wont buy from you if i have to deal with a distributor. The days of the middle man slowing me down are long gone for me. Even if I to pay a few bucks more doesnt outweigh the cost of not making chips while I am dealing with sales. I click order and arrives next day for my vendor.

yeah, its one of the reasons i have left that continent tbh. distributers and dealers.. so slow, bad for business, with an air of scammyness everytime. Europe does it much better. Websites with prices and delivery times and you can order without having to speak with some phone warrior.

This is for sure not the most efficient way to order tools. The techmet thing is a great tool to add to the arsenal, but I think you really missed on building relationships with your vendors. I've helped start a few shops and the very first thing done at each place is get accounts setup with the local vendors and getting them all into the shop to explain our needs in person. Gotta know what brands they sell and stock. Keep a list or line cards available for reference. You also didn't talk about the fact that us as programmers should be responsible for knowing our tooling and planning around lead times. If you see a 2 week lead time on some inserts, you need to select a different insert. Of course none of this applies if you don't have good local vendors which is why I never recommend opening a shop where you don't have a good local supply chain. I do think every brand needs to offer an online purchasing option. I don't understand waiting on a quote from a local vendor knowing they won't have it in stock and will drop ship from the vendor. However there is something to be said about ordering all through your vendors and keeping that relationship good so they will help you when you need them.

And some people wonder why China is doing well. Added to cart, done.

Sounds like you are dealing with the wrong distributors. Here is Ontario, we still have a family owned distributor that has next day delivery on most top brands. I have never had an issue with getting tooling!

Hang on, you break an insert or a holder, and you don't have a dozen spares on hand?

Really don’t see this issue in mid-Tn Plenty of distributors , competitive pricing and good service. At least 7 different suppliers come by my shop

Our distributor gets back to me within a day and usually has better pricing than msc.

I live down the road from a big grainger store no problem for me

Don't you guys have local tooling reps? I live in Adelaide, Australia. It's a tiny town and we get almost everything same day or overnight. Seems like it's a case of not being organised. Or just fluffing this website.

Chinese high feed cutter? No thank you. I prefer to keep an extra pack of inserts in my drawer. Ian you were at Pierson Workholding, just learn how to implement LEAN in your shop and you will never need to buy Chinese stuff again

You don't have a decent distributor in your area? Quotes on tooling comes back in hours. You can always go to the MSC.

In 1977 I took a job in inside sales at a small, but serious tool distributer in Denver. I had only applied for the delivery driver ppl opinion, but my future boss showed me a stack of applications and said hardly any of them had the shop and mfg. experience that I had, and would I please try sales? (Inside sales.) It sounds like even with the Web, things are pretty much the same. Sales people making promises that Production can't deliver? Check!

Private industry will eventually change this as china keeps shutting down. New players will level the playing field as demand will rocket for 2024

Not buying it mate sorry. Don't matter if you're a one man shop you must have your supply chain all set-up. How come you are making a job and from a sudden you have to find out where to buy the inserts you are already using? That should be addressed before making the first chip.