Buying HSS from China / Hong Kong

[graduate_owner]

Hi,
I have been looking on fleabay for HSS bar to grind into scrapers but all the advertisers seem to be in the far East. Has anyone tried these suppliers? I was looking at Milancentral as one possible source. Anyone have any experience of dealing with them?
Alternatively can anyone recommend a supplier, either abroad or UK? I would be looking for 5-6mm thick, anything from say 18 -30mm wide. I will probably cut off say 50mm lengths and fix to mild steel shanks.

Milancentral sell 5 x 40 x 200 for about £12 so a cheap way of making scrapers, provided the stuff is any good.

Any information around?

K

 

[CHJ]

If you are intending to cut up HSS stock of those sort of dimensions the initial cost difference between suppliers I would think will be quite insignificant to the costs incurred in cutting discs to cut it or drills to drill it.

I've always bought my stock pieces from Ashley Iles, either at wood shows or via mail order and smaller pieces from model engineering shows or suppliers.

 

[nev]

Dyfed steels in Llanelli?

 

[Rorschach]

Don't know if you know this or not (related to a comment above) but I find the best way to break down HSS blanks is to snap them rather than cut them up. I use a thin cut off wheel to score the blank on both sides where I want it to break, choke it up in the vice and then whack it with a lump hammer. If you try this, make sure you cover the blank with a rag though as it while fly around otherwise.

 

[graduate_owner]

That's a trick worth knowing. Thanks.

K

 

[woodpig]

I wouldn't expect to get a particularly good grade of HSS from the Far East, particularly if it's cheap. In fact given one of the tests I've seen it may not even qualify as HSS by western standards. For tools like gouges that take a bit more effort to sharpen correctly HSS is probably worth any additional cost but for something like a scraper I can't help thinking you may be better off trying 01 tool steel first and see how you get on with it. It won't have the wear resistance of HSS but if you leave just the extreme cutting edge glass hard it will end up with a similar hardness to HSS anyway. If you have a good sharpening setup it only takes a few seconds to put an edge back on and scrapers are largely used for fine finishing cuts anyway. The real benefit of 01 is that unlike HSS until it's hardened it's easily cut with a hacksaw and shaped with a file. Just a thought.

 

[Rorschach]

I have had pretty good luck with chinese HSS blanks from ebay. I use them on my engineering lathe (which is mostly used for wood and plastics), the edges do not last as long as better grades such as 5%cobalt, but since I am mostly turning pretty abrasive materials I lose the edge quickly anyway. The way I look at it I get better performance by buying the cheaper blanks and grinding up several to keep on hand, then I can change out in a matter of seconds when I need a fresh edge. Once I have run through my stock I sharpen everything at once. Much more efficient than buying expensive blanks and sharpening as I go as it interrupts my workflow.

Oh another tip, if the blank does not snap as I mentioned above but instead bends or has a very coarse crystal structure inside then you know it is low quality and I have got my money back in past with no trouble. A good blank will snap fairly cleanly at the score lines and inside will have a very fine grain structure.