MAX-T

I'm in the market for one or more HSS lathe boring/turning tools having managed to break the one I was using. Ok, ok, perhaps I was a bit too heavy handed - mea culpa and all that. Anyway, there are a lot of MAX-T tools being advertised on you know where. MAX-T Engineering appears to be a 6 year old company registered in Lowestoft with one named person.

So, does anyone know of them? Has anyone used their products? Etc. Etc.

Please don't bother recommending the likes of Soba or Glanze, I know of these and may go down that trail.

Cheers,

Peter G. Shaw

p.s. Just for the record, or maybe for fun, I'm also attempting to convert an old file into one such tool, but it's slow going.

How big is the bore that you want to produce?

Would it be large enough to permit the use of a boring bar with a small, say 1/8" toolbit clamped in it?

Could you even grind up a toolbit, mount it in a holder and bore the hole by plunging, gently in, on the face, as if making a very deep recess?

Howard

Howard,

Just the usual sort of thing, if one can say that. Actually, that might be an idea (boring bar with a small, say 1/8" toolbit clamped in it) to try, but after many years of using what could be called standard turning/boring tools, I suppose one gets stuck on one type of design.

Rather silily, I had a very good tool I obtained back in the dim dark ages, or so it seemed. I seem to think I bought it from one of our northern m.e. shops. It was capable of withstanding quite a lot of abuse. Unfortunately, I allowed my grandson to regrind it into a groove boring tool for an O ring: this was because I had another tool which seemed ok - until I broke it. I do have a 3mm HSS boring tool - circular bent design and the straight bit of the shaft is inserted into a piece of perhaps 7mm square bar with an appropriate hole drilled into the end. That's ok for small stuff.

I also have two tools which use carbide inserts but as a general rule, I'm not really a fan of carbide. Much prefer HSS which I can "adjust", grind, etc to give a smoother surface than the "liney" ones made by carbide. Having said that, I have used carbide in situations where HSS wouldn't cope. Horses for courses and all that.

I've also bought recently a 6mm boring tool, only to find that it needs a square sleeve to hold it, and the actual cutting part of it was rather long, perhaps a bit too long.

Maybe I'm just being picky.

Cheers,

Peter G. Shaw

Just cross drill a bit of bar to take a round HSS toolbit and put a grub screw in the end to retain it. make a split square bush like your little one to hold it. I have several rangin from 1/4" dia shank up to 28mm dia. You can grind what shape you like on the bit and old ctr drills will do

surely MAX-T tools are German And MAX-T engineering in Lowestoft is a plant and machinery company?

Looking at the Ebay listings. The company seems to be based in Chelmsford?

Andrew.

The Practool was the common example. Still have mine, although it has only been used for ‘fieldwork’ over the last few years.

Hi Folks,

First, thanks for the suggestions. Although that wasn’t what I asked, it has given me food for thought. What is personally annoying, is that only yesterday (Thursday), I threw away a broken BS2 centre drill! A bit stupid really.

Second. About the MAX-T tooling which was my original query.

Bernard Towers.

I don’t know where you got German from – I couldn’t find anything, but maybe I was asking the wrong question via “the fount of all knowledge”! I found the Lowestoft firm with one director, and thought “A-Ha. A one man and a dog firm. Could his products actually be any good?” Hence the questions.

Andrew Tinsley.

My view of the Ebay listings all suggested Edge near Stroud in Gloucestershire whereas Chelmsford is in Essex. Don’t understand. Furthermore, the Ebay listings show a 2 year membership of Ebay, so perhaps not a fly-by-night firm, but not far off when compared with Chronos, RDG, ARC etc.

The thing is, MAX-T appears to be only supplied from Stroud, from someone, or something if a firm, which uses two names on Ebay.

So, the question remains: “Does anyone know anything about MAX-T tooling? And, as a matter of interest, I have done various searches using Google etc in an attempt to find a suitable engineering company at Edge, and of course, nothing doing, but maybe that’s me not asking the right questions again!

Regards,

Peter G. Shaw

A google search for "MAX-T engineering supplies" got me a hit at Max-T engineering Supplies - MachineTools.com

This gives an address in Stroud which looks like a private house.

Edited By Peter Cook 6 on 14/07/2022 12:02:36

sorry Peter the reference for Max-t being German is eluding me now I can't find it anywhere as I clear my history almost daily.

Peter,

Are you sure it is MAX-T as T-Max are inserts made by Sandvik and will be of good quality.

Richard

As regular readers know I have a low opinion of brand-names; whilst some are carefully protected indicators to well-made products, most are just labels, perhaps entirely symbolic.

Seem to me that MAX-T is just a trading name rather than a manufacturer or a particular product line. Generic manufacturers are happy to provide whatever colour, brand-name, packaging and price point the retailer wants. Anything between top of the range and too cheap.

Probably the only way to find out for sure is to buy a MAX-T tool and test it. If HSS, there's no special magic in the way most of it's made, so it will probably work as well as any other HSS of the same specification. But what specification? Often unstated by small vendors. If it matters, order from an industrial supplier who identifies the exact type of HSS that meets your needs and perhaps certificates it as well. May cost more...

'Quality' is the simple sense of the word probably isn't a factor. For example, M1 and M2 HSS are similar except M1 is the more shock resistant of the two. That's good, unless cutting temperature is the critical issue, because M2 withstands heat better than M1. Which of the two is the highest 'quality' depends on how it's used, not on the material.

The similar T-Max is a registered Sandvik brand-name covering a range of industrial grade carbide products.

Dave

Peter Cook 6,

Yeah, I found that address, or rather the website, and tried to view 'phone no. & website only to come up against another website that wanted details of name, address, & inside leg measurements. So that was where I stopped.

I've now tried Google Street View, and I agree, it does look like a private house which fits with what appears on Ebay. So maybe it is a one man and a dog operation!

Bernard Towers,

Not to worry. I found a large commercial business offering this make, amongst others, but can I find it again? Not at all. I actually clear my history & other stuff every time I close the browser. So in that respect, I'm probably worse off than you.

Cheers,

Peter G. Shaw

I Googled Max-T turning tools and good old Google immediately gave me pages where they had corrected the name to T-Max which are Sandvik products, and so not HSS tool suppliers.

So next Google search was Max-T engineering. This threw up two entries and you nee to be very specific at this stage to identify the company you are searching for: -

(1) MaxT Engineering Limited: This a Plant and Machinery company based in Lowestoft. not a tooling supplier.

(2) Max-T Engineering Supplies. This is a company based in Gloucestershire apparently supplying some tooling.

What is in a name? In this case simply the little old hyphen. Inclusion or omission of the hyphen gets you totally different results.

Well, as a Lowestoft lad of 77 years MAX-T is a new one on me Peter. Certainly not aware of anyone in our area supplying small tooling such as you require. That doesn't mean there isn't, just not aware of anything.

I have some pretty crudely ground bits of HSS that do the business - ha! - on another thread I was mentioning working at a jobbing shop - still have the tool I ground up to do internal o ring grooves on a regular job we had.

I took the time to make the George Thomas design boring tool holder which was well worth doing but most of the time it's my old cobbled together 'bits' that see the action (not that there's a lot of that these days!)

You can make very nice small boring bars from old endmills/slot drills - just grind it all away save one tooth

Hope you are keeping well

Tug

I'm with Dave (SOD) on this one just an internet trading name of someone with a lock up (or less) who has imported a batch of HSS tooling, etc and selling it on. As it is "Max-T Engineering Supplies" that does not suggest a maker to me. Likely to be gone as fast as they appear.

Edited By JasonB on 14/07/2022 18:02:52

I've made the small GHT boring bar holders and use them very frequently, but why in nearly 50 years in engineering have I never thought of using an old slot drill as a boring bar? ( please don't feel you have to answer that!)

Thanks Tug what a great idea, I'll make some tomorrow before the workshop gets too hot.

Learn something new every day!

Dave

Well folks, it looks as if this is going nowhere. But thanks for trying.

A bit like Tug, I'm in the process of making one from an old file. Only it's coming out rather larger than I wanted. But never mind, I've plenty of bits of old files to play with so having gained experience, I'm thinking I might try a smaller one.

I've actually wondered about buying a couple of MAX-T tools just as an experiment to see if they are any good, after all, 10 or 12 quid isn't going to break the bank. I'll have to mull it over tonight when trying to fall asleep - not always easy these days, and thinking about something like this is rather more useful than mentally reminiscing about events of 50 or 60 years ago.

Dave/SOD,

I don't necessarily agree with your thoughts about brand names. I've had a few occasions, mainly with batteries, where recognised & well-known makes have done what they are supposed to do whereas cheaper names with silly names like "Jolly Green Giant" simply don't cut the mustard. Mind you, it doesn't always work like that, eg our previous vehicle was a Focus 1.8 diesel estate and which turned out to be Friday afternoon and Monday morning job rolled into one. Even my wife, not known for commenting about cars, was heard to complain vociferously about the amount of time it spent being repaired. Our present car, a Toyota Avensis, completely meets that saying something like "If you want utterly boring performance allied to excellent reliability, buy a Toyota".

So, once again, thanks for all your thoughts, suggestions, etc. Let's leave it at that.

Cheers,

Peter G. Shaw

I wonder if you would have said the same about a bearing supplier in Leicester when they first started.

Probably!

The infant mortality rate of businesses is very high indeed. Especially those started as a one or two person suppliers into a market niche spotted by the originator.

Finding a niche that will allow you to build a sustainable business is hard enough. Most of them are only open for a short while before the situation changes or before a larger, more established outfit moves in to take the niche to expand their range. Established firms have the management and back up systems in place. New starts have to build the management and back up simultaneously with the business. Doesn't take long to hit the not enough hours ina day but not enough money to hire help crunch.

Building the niche filling start up into a proper, well established business is orders of magnitudes harder!

Your basic tradesman / cornershop et al "buying a job" type business supplying a known local demand is merely hard and within most folks ability if they really wan't to do it. And can manage on no sleep for ayear or two! But beyond that it gets complicated.

Clive

Edited By Clive Foster on 15/07/2022 09:44:26