Chthulhu
Member
In the last week or so, one of you good people commented on the superiority of finish quality on plastic stock with HSS compared to carbide tooling. While at the local Harbor Freight store, a place where I usually browse but never buy, in search of wheels for my hand truck (they had 'em, $6.99 each vs. $24+ at Home Depot), I found that they also had a little $5 package of assorted HSS tool bits, so with last week's comments jabbing me in the brain, I grabbed one of those as well.
Once home, I just honed the rather poor factory edge a touch and messed around with some scraps of various plastics (very nice), wood (nice), mild steel (okay), and brass (wow!), and was delighted by the much nicer finish produced by these undoubtedly-low-quality (it *is* a Harbor Freight product, after all) little bits of steel.
So whoever it was who mentioned this, I thank you most sincerely.
The $5 package includes one each of 3/16", 1/4", and 5/16" square bits, a 1/4" round bit, and a 1/16"x1/2" partoff blade considerably longer than the .040"x1/2" blade that came with my lathe's tooling package.
Once home, I just honed the rather poor factory edge a touch and messed around with some scraps of various plastics (very nice), wood (nice), mild steel (okay), and brass (wow!), and was delighted by the much nicer finish produced by these undoubtedly-low-quality (it *is* a Harbor Freight product, after all) little bits of steel.
So whoever it was who mentioned this, I thank you most sincerely.
The $5 package includes one each of 3/16", 1/4", and 5/16" square bits, a 1/4" round bit, and a 1/16"x1/2" partoff blade considerably longer than the .040"x1/2" blade that came with my lathe's tooling package.