I would have recommended JB Cutting tools but I note that they have decided to stop trading until the spring so I would look at Glanze tools stocked by Chronos and also look at what ARC Eurotrade have to offer.

I can recommend the Glanz also, I have some, and the ARC 95 degree type, but not the 45 degree ones.

+1 for what Andrew says about buying individual holders to do the jobs you need to do.

Best to buy proper industrial holders and industrial inserts too with proper application data support via makers catalogues / internet sites. Having got the data use them as per book. Name brand makes spend a ton of money and effort to make something that works really well when used as advised. Many inserts will work pretty well when driven well outside book figures, usually in our case too slow, but that's always a bit of a crap shoot. Small changes invisible to the user can completely wreck off book performance whilst delivering improvements on book. As I found out when a re-order abandoning the previously OK off book speeds for the new box.

Selected and used correctly carbide performance can be awesome but the inserts are expensive and you can't just touch them up like HSS. So it behooves you to do your homework and get the appropriate ones for your work and your machine. Not going to manage that before Christmas!

Regrettably model engineer / home workshop price friendly sets are made for the person who has heard that carbide can be a good idea and is tempted to try things out on the cheap. All too often the performance is no better, maybe worse, than skilled sharpened HSS except for things like dealing with abrasive skin, plasmat cut hardened edges et al. Of course getting a sharp, long lasting edge on HSS is a skill many folk have never mastered. I can do a decent job but there are many, many folk better than me.

Confession time. I keep a pretty general purpose carbide tool mounted that gets grabbed for quick turning jobs when I don't want to sort out a proper tool. I don't exploit it properly but it manages well enough. Helps that I got about four boxes of inserts silly cheap. When they are gone I probably won't re-order.

Clive

Probably out of ignorance, I bought a cheap set of seven 10mm shank tipped tools for the Myford via eBay, can't think they cost more than £25. The set contained turning tools, screw-cutting tools and boring bars but I can't see exactly the same sets listed now. I was so pleased with them that I ordered the same set in 16mm shank for the Colchester and they were equally as good for my amateur purposes at about thirty quid. I have just looked on eBay and was shocked to see that almost similar items are now selling for between around £85 and £100. These days price is no real guarantee of quality and utility, IMO, I took a chance and won out but I could have equally become unstuck although strangely enough all the supposedly cheap 'crap' from China seems to work perfectly well for me and my purposes. Perhaps it's just me?

As always with sets, people are either for or against them!

Sets generally work out cheaper than buying the same tools one at a time but not if the set contains more than a few tools you never use. And some sets contain odd assortments!

The risk of buying a useless tool is unacceptable to the sort of Model Engineer who loves a bargain. (Often a short-armed individual who keeps his wallet padlocked at the bottom of a very deep pocket! i.e. Most of us.) Sets are also avoided by professional engineers because buying too cheap, too expensive or unnecessary is an excellent way of bankrupting a business.

Boils down to:

• buy individual tools IF you already know exactly what you need,
• buy a set IF you don't know exactly what's needed. Exploring a set to find which tools are useful is valuable learning, especially for self-taught machinists.

What you need depends on what you do and your machine. My mini-lathe wasn't stiff enough to part-off, so all parting tools are wasted on it. However, the parting tools that failed on a mini-lathe all work well on my WM280, except I don't use them much because a blade tool mounted in a rear-tool post is almost foolproof. On the mini-lathe, (smaller than a Myford), I mostly used Glanze 6mm RH and Facing cutters, and the LH occasionally.

Picture of insert holders:

On a WM280, which is notch bigger than a Myford:

1. RH 10mm fitted with sharp non-ferrous insert, but also used on mild-steel. Used for fine-work in tight spaces.
2. Glanze 6mm Facing tool. Much used on mini-lathe, generally too small for WM280
3. Glanze 6mm LH. Occasionally used on mini-lathe and WM280 – for fine work,
4. Parting Tool, too big for mini-lathe, brilliant on WM280 with rear tool-post/
5. Button Tool, rarely used but irreplaceable when needed.
6. Triangular boring bar. Much too big for mini-lathe. Not much used on WM280 because I rarely bore large diameter holes.
7. Square insert tool for high-speed metal removal. Produces an unpleasant spray of smoking chips. Requires more power, RPM and rigidity than a 1.5kW WM280 is good for. A tri-cornered cutter or chamfering tool from the same set do the same job in a more civilised way.

This image pinched from Warco shows what a range of common inserts do:

Dave