Official Luthiers Forum!

I have a box of 10, (9 are left) 1.2 mm or so HSS end mills for purfling. I bought them online from China probably for maybe $25, and maybe 6-8 years ago. I have no idea where I got them from.
Now all I can find is carbide for $22 each with hardly ANY choice of diameter. I wanted to get one to put purfling on the head to match the fingerboard. They say it is 1mm + but it seems to be .9 to me. Can you buy HSS 1 mm bits any more? For $3-5 each? The 1.2 diameter ones that I have are too sloppy.

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Why be normal?

I heard somewhere there is a world wide shortage at the moment.

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The name catgut is confusing. There are two explanations for the mix up.

Catgut is an abbreviation of the word cattle gut. Gut strings are made from sheep or goat intestines, in the past even from horse, mule or donkey intestines.

Otherwise it could be from the word kitgut or kitstring. Kit meant fiddle, not kitten.

https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R ... m+end+mill
Or
https://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_from=R ... l&_sacat=0

10 carbide ones for $10 shipped? Ok. They twisted my arm.

When they had that big tsunami in Japan we had a hard time for a while getting decent ceramic inserts for our lathe tools. We used them all the time cutting hardened steel. All we could get was junk. We used them like shops use carbide.

Hah, I can hear the sandhill cranes squawking.

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Why be normal?