I use Sumitomo FC ground edge insets, a lot. More expensive than a moulded insert they work well in my small cnc lathe (1/2hp at spindle). I have used them on Stainless and 4140 steel, brass and aluminium and they have worked well. However on an interrupted cut not so good, which is quite understandable as the edge is sharply ground. My Sumitomo rep suggested their LU chip breaker type moulded insert and it worked really well. In this videoo I am turning the heads off M10, 304 stainless bolts.
Manufactured by Hercus in South Australia these lathes were sold to many technical colleges and countries all over the world. As technology has overtaken the lathes, mainly by later operating systems, they are to be seen more and more on the hobby market. Before the PC range of lathes, these machines were controlled by ANCA controllers and were called a Computurn. As a general rule, the castings and slides of a machine of this age are the same design as the later models and actually have higher quality lead screws. The mechanical sheet metal work on these models look different but the machine is basically the same. The ANCA’s were followed by a sheet metal work makeover enabling these machines to become a desktop version called the PC200. They used a PC as its controller. Over the following years the machines had little mechanical changes (other than their colour). The only exception to this is the mechanism for the automatic tool changer. The tool changer went from a “reverse lock in” type to a motorised worm and worm wheel gearbox type. This allowed faster bi-directional tool changing and addressed all of the shortcomings of the earlier version, which had to rotate a full rotation to select a previous tool. These lathes were made over a 14 year period and in a number of models sold overseas under the name of Rockford Pro 2000. An industrial version of the PC200 is the Novim, which comes with an industrial enclosure for coolant.
