A little OT (ie feel free to water cooler this)

, if you asked my machining Guru 20 years ago about switching from braised\ground tooling to inserts you'd be fired and chased off the property!
Today? Not does he only swear by 'new' tooling, he gave me a 1/2" Kennametal, 2 flute end mill and a couple of 1/2" CCMT inserts to try out. So I asked him, "At what speed should I run the Mill at?"
He said "Well....How fast can your Mill go?"
"2400 RPM" I replied, he said "Go for 1,800 to leave you a little torque on that little puppy and obey the 1/3 rule on cutter size vs. cut width\depth."
"So, what about feed rate?" I asked, he said "How fast can you turn the handle?"
Well, needless to say, I was\am making a new cross-slide screw (6mm? to 7\16") and a QCTP base, both the cross-slide screw support bracket that mounts to the apron, and the QCTP base riser were machined from 4" Dia 4140 steel......guess what......as to the 1\2" mill, I'm still rough cutting with it 6mos later

soon to be retired, however, the current replacement cost (In Canada) is about $24.00 and come up on sale for $12~13.00.
As to the inserts, right off the get go there was an improvement in finish, however being a rookie I could not figure out why I went from making a beautifull .002 thread to a pretty .0015 thread?

Well, Guru gave me 2 lessons (so far) concerning insert tooling, Lesson Number 1, No Matter What "They" Say, there is no cutting tool (insert) 'Truly' ready to go, he took a fresh insert (New-out-of-the-box) and we did a rough cut on a 3\4" dia chunck of MS stock (looked threaded), he then took the insert to the 'Green' wheel and a couple of quick touches, then he pulled out a fine India Stone, gave the relief edges a few deft strokes, re-set the tool and voila, near mirror finish.
As to using the side of a grinding wheel, if you have a dedicated grinder (like my Guru has) they have been using the same wheel for over 2 years (remember a production shop) with no issues. Dedicated is the point here, all the 'green' wheel EVER gets used for is carbide inserts and the amount of pressure and grinding time are next to nil, if you are grinding for more than a second or two you have most likely ruined the insert or ground off the coating. (again we are talking 1\2" bits not a 3" wood chisle)
Lesson 2 (so far) Coated inserts will\can build up a 'smear' of material during cutting that may require a clean up with the India Stone' on the cutting edge and I cannot stress chip clearence vis a vie carbide, that is they can easly chip due to their stiffness if swarf gets between the work piece and the tool.
My 2 cents and cheers,
Chazz