Video Transcript

JACOB SANCHEZ: Across America, the manufacturing and metalworking industry is being presented with another challenge...rising carbide cost. In 2026 alone, the raw material of carbide has gone up three times, and this is presenting a new mindset in machinists and shop owners alike. How can I utilize carbide tooling? That's why I'm here today. I'm here with the ISCAR Metals team in Arlington, Texas.

They have customers coming from all over to get to the bottom of this. A few things we're going to be going over: You're moving your material. How are you removing your material? Are you doing it well? You're using your tools. How are you using them? Are you using them effectively? And number three, all of that carbide that you have in your cutters, how much of that is just wasted length?

That's what we're going to be diving into today. I think it's time for you and I to get down to it and start learning how to maximize carbide efficiency.

It's time to start getting after some of that problem-solving we talked about earlier. I'm with Tom. How's it going, sir?

TOM RAUN: Pleasure.

JACOB SANCHEZ: The CTO of ISCAR Americas here in the states, here in Arlington. Very happy to have you.

TOM RAUN: Nice to meet you. We’re happy to have you here.

JACOB SANCHEZ: I know we're going to be going over a lot of things today. One of the things I hope that you can kind of dive into me more with is this idea of reducing waste, just the idea of waste in general on the machine shop floor, when it comes to carbide, there's been some rising costs lately. What information do you have for us on this?

TOM RAUN: So, the rising cost of carbide is definitely an issue that we're all going to be trying to deal with in the near future. Just throwing some numbers out there, the same raw material powders that we were purchasing to produce tools at $300 back in January of 25 is now $3,000, 15, 16 months later. So, you know, but we're here to say that, yes, the rising cost of carbide raw material to produce carbide is going up, but there's still the opportunity to improve how you're using the tools.

JACOB SANCHEZ: So I know we have a lot of customers here today. You're putting on this amazing forum to try to solve some of these challenges. You're talking about doing more with that cost, trying to find new ways to cut. I want to hear from someone to see how they're changing their shop and trying to find new ways to cut.

You mind if we bring someone in?

TOM RAUN: Yes, please. Let's do it.

JACOB SANCHEZ: Hey, Eric, do you mind coming over, sir? Hey, guys. How's it going?

ERIK SATHER: Hey guys. How’s it going?

JACOB SANCHEZ: Jacob Sanchez. How's it going?

ERIK SATHER: Great. Great.

JACOB SANCHEZ: So, Eric, who are you? What do you do? Where are you from?

ERIK SATHER: My name is Erik Sather. I'm a machinist. I work for the great company JEMCO Components and Fabrication in Kirkland, Washington.

JACOB SANCHEZ: I like that. So you're here at ISCAR today. We're in Arlington, Texas. What have you been thinking so far? You're already a few seminars into the day. What are you trying to get out of your day? I mean, you came a long way to get here, you know.

ERIK SATHER: Yeah, I'm just learning about some of the new technologies that ISCAR is employing. And, yeah, the cost of carbide is crazy expensive. And recently, I've had really good luck with the lever lock tools and cutting monel, and boy, I just can't see anything that could beat it for sure.

JACOB SANCHEZ: So at the end of the day, you're a machinist. You get paid whether you're here or not. You don't have to get better. You're here because you want to get better. Like what's in it for you?

ERIK SATHER: We have to get better. I have to get better as a machinist. The company has to get better as a company. We have to stay competitive. And that's why I'm here. We're learning how to utilize the carbide, the expensive carbide that we're getting, utilizing it better because we need carbide. We can't work without it.

JACOB SANCHEZ: That's cool man. I hope you enjoy the rest of the day - I know you have some other seminars to get to. Erik and I both don't have skin in the game, but as you can see, we are pretty passionate about what we're learning from Iscar today. Hope you enjoy the rest of the day.

ERIK SATHER: Thank you very much. Take care, guys.

JACOB SANCHEZ: So you just heard it here first. Not just from your shop floor. From amazing shop floors and amazing machinists around the country like Erik, who are here to get it done. They're not just here because their boss told them to get here. They're here on their own time to get better. What do you think else is something that ISCAR is doing right now that should be able to speak to some of these people? Hey, we can save you cost and we can also save you blank.

TOM RAUN: You know, if we can make better decisions up front for how you're going to utilize the carbide, then we can be ahead of the game before you ever get that tool in your hands. One example of that would maybe be some of the tooling advisors, things that we're providing upfront that allow people to easily search for the right tool, for the right application, and to get that cutting parameter data that they need upfront.

Maybe it helps them out with quoting, maybe it helps them out with just knowing, hey, this is what I'm going to be able to do with the tool when I finally get it in my hands. I think we've got some good digital solutions to help out with that.

JACOB SANCHEZ: We're talking about getting tools in your hand. Erik got me all fired up. Do you mind if you and I take a little walk and we can check out another tool and dive into a little bit more about those issues on the shop floor?

TOM RAUN: Yeah, sure, let’s do it.

JACOB SANCHEZ: Nice. So, Tom, I have another question for you. And it's really about where do you see shops losing out the most when it comes to their tooling?

TOM RAUN: To put it simply, it's really just wasted tooling, tooling that's not fully utilized. We see a lot of carbide that goes into the scrap bin. And it's just not it just hasn't been used to its fullest potential, and not even from the feeds and speeds and cutting parameters side, just simply not utilizing the full carbide cutting edge that they've paid for.

JACOB SANCHEZ: And some of those machining, I won't call them strategies, but the ways to machine with those tools, that's what actually got you and your team to start coming up with some of these newer tooling innovations, correct? Can you tell me a little bit about that?

TOM RAUN: Yeah, a lot of our latest innovations have been what we would refer to as maybe a mini or a small indexable-type technology, where we're taking what the customers are doing anyway, the lighter depths of cuts, the lighter widths of cuts, and we're producing or designing tools that fit to those applications, so we utilize more of the carbide, the insert’s smaller right out of the gate.

So it costs less. And, you know, we're in a better place right from the start, from the decision-making side of actually purchasing the cutting tool.

JACOB SANCHEZ: Yeah, less cost for the same performance that I think we can actually go check out in this facility. You mind walking me over so we can see some of these tools cutting?

TOM RAUN: Let's do it.

JACOB SANCHEZ: We're in the shop. We got the machines. We have the tools. Now it's time to figure out how to piece it all together. I'm here with Keith. How's it going, sir? So I was talking with Tom earlier today. We were going over a lot of ways to reduce waste and inefficiencies on the shop floor when it comes to carbide lengths, all that good stuff.

But I want you to bring it home for me. What does it look like when you're trying to reduce wasted carbide actually here on the shop floor?

KEITH CARLILE: Well, the first thing to consider is utilization of the carbide. It's very popular and common to just grab an end mill and do your work. That’s quite a bit of carbide. So years and years and years ago, we brought out indexables. If you're going to use this much, why don't you use an indexable and only index and replace this amount of carbide versus that?

As we move forward in time and these commodities are getting more expensive. Physics is physics. We simply downscale it. So now we've got this 15mm insert, very popular. We can bring that down. That's as small of an insert as we can put a usable hole in. If being smaller would be like a watch screw wouldn't have the mechanical force.

But we can even get down to that small of an indexable insert. We can still do 100,000ths depth of cut with that. It's a very common depth of cut.

JACOB SANCHEZ: So that's the thing that I was wondering about, because if I'm going to these smaller cutters, does that mean I now have to reduce the amount of material I'm taking off?

KEITH CARLILE: Not necessarily. Not necessarily. The feature is going to dictate the amount of material that we remove. We've got less material, often with better castings, near net shapes, and printed parts. We might not need to have all of that cutting-edge. So we simply tune to the smaller insert. The smaller inserts have a good, strong, robust edge. They're still solid carbide.

JACOB SANCHEZ: Okay. And what does that have to do, though? Like, if we're moving to something, say one of these where it has this thread on it, and this is all the carbide I'm paying for here, what can you tell me about this?

KEITH CARLILE: This is the ISCAR MULTI-MASTERsystem, and it's a threaded connection. There's a cone and a flat. So you would simply screw this in until it stops. It's done. The advantage is that that shank can stay resident. It doesn't have to leave. So, normally, to change this tool, I would take the holder out. I would take it over to the bench, pull everything apart, put it back together, come back to the machine, and touch it off.

With this system, I do not need to do that. I simply take it off. It can be in the machine, put on the new head, whether it be a replaceable or an indexable, and hit the button off to the races. We can work offline so you don't have to change all of that which would normally be lost.

JACOB SANCHEZ: And what does that do to my feeds and speeds? Does it do anything to my cycle time?

KEITH CARLILE: No, you change to the job based on how far out the projection is and so forth. So you're going to do that anyhow. But what you do not have to do is take all the time on the bench when the machine stops to change that, so it's easier for the operator. We've got smaller configurations with these ER. If you're on a Swiss or a very constrained envelope, or it's time-consuming to change that, you just put the wrench, take that tip off, put the new one on, carry on, make your parts.

JACOB SANCHEZ: How's it going, John?

JOHN NGUYEN: Good. How are you?

JACOB SANCHEZ: Good to see you, my friend. I brought my tool, my indexable drill here, because I heard we're going to be going over a lot of different types of indexable drills that your team offers.

JOHN NGUYEN: Okay, so what we're going to go over is not really indexable. We're going to go over a replaceable tip. And first off, we're going to start with our SUMOCHAM product line. This is our most versatile tool on the market with different geometries and a 4000 increment. And then we have another product line which, we'll get to this. These are all niche product lines. These are all problem solvers. So first off, you can see these are MULTI-MASTER threaded. So this is a problem-solving tool right here. And then after that, we get into this one. This is another new product line that we launched. And this is designed for another niche application where it's heavy interruption, whatever it may be.

And then after that we get into our new QUICK3CHAM. It's designed for your drilling, counterbore. And then we have a head that we utilize for counterbores. So it's a niche application.

JACOB SANCHEZ: So, I got a question. So, looking at this right now, this is the carbide here.

JOHN NGUYEN: Yes.

JACOB SANCHEZ: This here is not carbide.

JOHN NGUYEN: Not carbide.

JACOB SANCHEZ: I'm saving money by this not being carbide because I just need that on my cutting edge.

JOHN NGUYEN: Yes.

JACOB SANCHEZ: What are your thoughts on that topic in a shop? I don't need to have a solid carbide drill for every material and every job. How does this kind of help me out?

JOHN NGUYEN: So when we get into the niche product like that, most of the time when you get into something that's long like that, the customer will need to only drill maybe a half an inch. So why buy a piece of carbide that you're paying a lot of money for because carbide’s paid by weight, when you can utilize this and interchange it with a tip only, and you get that reach and do your application.

JACOB SANCHEZ: That's cool. And same idea with these as well, right?

JOHN NGUYEN: Same idea as these as well, and you know like I said, these are niche products. So we can get into different applications, long overhang, long overreach. And that will solve the problem instead of buying a long piece of carbide.

JACOB SANCHEZ: So there's that difference between indexable and interchangeable heads. Is there anything good about indexable drills then?

JOHN NGUYEN: Indexable is kind of like a general-purpose, very economical on the insert. You can utilize that. It's kind of like a roughing operation, right? So, the tolerance on that is a little bit wider. So, you know, plus or minus 10, 20, depending on the size. And then you know, it’s economical that the insert is small, the carbide is smaller, so you pay less price for it, you know, versus a replaceable head.

JACOB SANCHEZ: It's nice. So it sounds like I don't always have to have a solid piece of carbide for every job. I can look at some of these interchangeable or indexable options to get my job done. I appreciate your time today, sir. Thanks for helping me out.

JOHN NGUYEN: Thank you, no problem.

JACOB SANCHEZ: We got to talk to machinists and shop owners from around the country today here with ISCAR, and the things that we dove into and actually solved today in this episode are this. Number one, when you're removing material, you don't always have to take it all away. Sometimes doing that smarter can lead to you saving a part for your customer.

Number two, wasted carbide length. Don't buy that six-inch cutter with a three-inch flute length and only use half an inch of it. That's wasted flute length, that's wasted carbide. And using your tool efficiently doesn't mean that it's all about the feeds and speeds. Sometimes switching to a tool like an indexable tool is less carbide for the same cost.

And to sum all of that up. You don't have to be the shop that's running the fastest to be the best. You need to be the smartest. You need to be the shop that's using the right tool for the right customer, on the right feature. That's how to maximize carbide efficiency.

Narrator: For more metalworking tips and industry best practices, stay tuned for the next How To episode and subscribe to the MSC Industrial Supply YouTube channel, a source of original manufacturing content Built To Make You Better.