Originally Posted by
JIMinPHX
The art of making a good chip hook on top of a hand ground tool is a dieing art for a reason. It takes a long time & a lot of trial & error to become proficient. The returns from mastering that art are frequently only a little better than the results that you can get from buying a high end carbide insert. Most guys these days just buy the good inserts or do without improved chip control.
In the old days, learning to grind a tool top for good chip control was a bellwether of a good machinist, much like knowing how to use a file correctly. In much the same way that kids in school these days don't really pay much attention to spelling because "spell check will fix that", the machinists of today are loosing their grip on some of the most basic skills that once defined their profession.
Only someone who would waste his time on something as arcane as casting boolits would seem to appreciate this sort of thing anymore.