In the world of machine tools there is an incredibly wide variety of metal cutting tools that are used for everything from heavy, aggressive workpiece material stock removal to finishing and everything in between. Here are some of the most common among them.
- Angle grinders: An angle grinder utilizes a cutoff wheel or disk impregnated with a grinding abrasive and can be used to cut pipes, metal rods, and other metal workpieces to a set length. Angle grinders can also be used for profiling and for some shaping tasks as well, though they are less precise than some other metal cutting tools.
- Bandsaws: Bandsaws are basically power saws that are used to quickly cut through a workpiece, in this case one made of metal. They are primarily used for making clean, quick, replicable cuts through angle panel, bar iron, metal pipes and more. Also, unlike angle grinders with cut-off wheels, they throw few to no sparks.
- Power shears: Power shears are like handheld, manual shears except they use electric power to give the operator a much greater mechanical advantage. This makes them faster and more efficient than unpowered shears, but like their more mundane cousins, they are used for cutting sheet metal and relatively light gauge wire.
- Reciprocating saws: A reciprocating saw is a metal cutting tool that can be used to cut rods, pipes, and other metal workpieces to length. Like a bandsaw they generally throw few to no sparks. Reciprocating saws can also be outfitted with different blades making them suitable for working on other materials in addition to metal.
- Plasma cutters: Plasma cutters use a directed jet of plasma (a very hot, dissociated state of matter) to clean, intricate lines in conductive metals like steel and aluminum.
- Laser cutters: Laser cutters perform the same office of cutting intricate details in plates or sheets of conductive metals like steel or aluminum as plasma cutters do, but as the name suggests they use a laser rather than a directed jet of plasma.
- Lathes: Lathes hold a workpiece and rotate it at very high speeds and press a metal cutting tool into it so that material can be removed from it.
- Drills and drill presses: Drills and drill presses use specialized metal cutting tools called drills or end mills and depending on the material of the drill or mill, as well as the cutting flute configuration, can be used for a wide range of applications including but not limited to spotting, drilling, thread milling, profiling, shaping, roughing, finishing, and much more.
Not Mentioned Here
While this post covers metal cutting tools that are specifically used with machine tools like drills, presses, lathes, angle grinders, and CNC machines, there are many other types of metal cutting tools such as nibblers, shears and snips, files, hand scrapers and chisels that are also used for metal stock removal, profiling, shaping, finishing, and more. Some providers of machine tool accessories also carry a wide variety of metal cutting tools that are manually operated, such as TMT Toolbox.
Shop Machine Tools and Accessories at TMT Toolbox
If you landed here because you need a provider of machine tool accessories that sells a wide variety of metal cutting tools, such as carbide drills, mills, grinding abrasives, and more, visit TMT Toolbox. They carry an expansive inventory not just of metal cutting tools but also of machine tool accessories like chucks and chuck adapter plates used with lathes and indexable mills used with CNC machines.
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