Hello and welcome to another edition of Grainger Ask The Experts. Today we're gonna talk about clamp screws for indexable inserts, why it's important to manage their torque and how to do it. When it comes to indexable tooling, whether for a lathe or for a mill, just as essential as the cutting tool edge that's used is the clamp screw that's used to hold it in place. Usually in a machine shop if tight is good, tighter is better. This is not the case when it comes to utilization of the clamp screw. So the screw has a predetermined torque that should be used. Over tightening that screw can compromise its tinsel strength, which ultimately compromises the cutting edge rigidity and accuracy. So in order to accomplish that, the best thing to use is a torque wrench. This one is a fixed size and fixed torque. And so what that sounds like or what that looks like when it tightens down, is once it gets to the proper tightness you normally get a click, or a sound that tells me that that screw is at the proper tension and that tool is at its optimum accuracy.

So there are other versions of that. This one is ... it has adjustable torque as well as can be used with different size tips and this is the same just a slightly different configuration. Thanks for watching this edition of Grainger Ask The Experts. For more helpful tips and videos, check out the full series.