Amana Inserted V-Groove 1102

[Leo Voisine]

All throughout my career I have tried and evaluated All Manner of cutters. Solid, HSS, Coated, Cobalt, Ceramic, Carbide, Inserted and the list goes on and on and on.

I like Solid Carbide cutters. I have never been a fan of inserted tooling. I have used and speced out TONS of inserted tooling. There is certainly a place for it. I have never been a fan of things like inserted drills. They are extremely expensive. The body is extremely expensive. Th inserts are extremely expensive. I have seen the body get destroyed MANY MANY times, then have the department manager complain about the cost to my boss. Now - a drill body can cost 300 - 600 dollars and an insert 75 - 100 dollars.

For my home shop
I have looked at Tools Today and at the Amana inserted tooling - MANY - times. My head keep saying, at $150 for the body and at $18 for the insert, I can but a LOT of solid carbide cutters, or Carbide tipped cutters.

I am making some signs for a customer. I loaded up a NICE Whiteside 90 deg V-groove cutter and did the v-grooving in PVC. When done, I look closely at it. I am near sighted and me looking close is almost like a microscope. I was not satisfied with the cut.

So, I broke down and ordered the 1102 1-1/2 90 degree inserted V-Groove cutter from Amana.

I tried it out today to recut my PVC signs and the cut quality is really nice.
Lot of money if you ask me - but it IS quality.

I will post a few pics later

 

[Darren Wright]

Good deal, I've got that bit also as part of the set I bought last year, which was normally $330 and I got the 4 piece set for $180. I haven't been able to try out any of those bits yet, but look forward to when the shop is up and going again.

The amana RC-45711 is a good value in my opinion. It is just a 1/4" shank, but nice bit and the inserts are only like $5 and have multiple sides to use.

btw...I've been using the trick of putting some things like that in my amazon shopping cart, then clicking on the save for later once in the cart. I get updates from time to time when things go on sale or the price drops if it's saved for later.

 

[Darren Wright]

Another note, I bought my set when the vectric user group meeting was running last year, may have been a sale at that time. Since the user group meeting is coming up on Sept. 9-11th, may be worth checking then to see if they are on sale again.