Who here has bought KBC branded tooling?
- Thread starter YYCHM
- Start date
francist
Super User
I haven’t used those specific tools but I do buy their end mills, taps, and regular reamers. I’m happy enough with them. A lot of their in-house branded stuff is or was TMX out of Poland. Lately I see some of their products have a “KBC” or “KBC USA” choice as well. Not all of them, but I have run across some. I use KBC almost exclusively.
-frank
-frank
Hi Craig, for what it's worth I use KBC brand chucking reamers all being below 3/4" dia. Like -frank mentions they appear to come out of Poland, more than satisfied with same. Was looking at KBC's latest flyer and their adjustable reamer set. Interesting reduction from $201.81 to just $121.09 in their pricing! Wonder where they are manufactured? Bill
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Brent H
Ultra Member
@YYCHobbyMachinist : I have a bunch of the KBC stuff - off the top of my head - I bought the stubby drills and just use them for the mill and they cut very well and accurate. I have a few reamers and a few taps....a few other items but not home to take some pics for you....alas
That's what I needed to know thanks! Looking at getting some stubby drill bits to use on the mill and lathe. Any experience with adjustable reamers in general?
Craig
The KBC stub length drills I bought were quite good. Made in Europe. Mine happened to be black oxide. The supplied case was not great I ended up getting a Huot when it came on sale. I'm pretty sure the drills are 135-deg point if that's an issue for you. I would have preferred to match my 120-deg center spot drills but you don't see that as often & 135-deg center drills are even harder to find. I bought a regular set of HSS KBC 118-deg drills a while back on sale with the expressed purpose to dub them for use on brass/bronze etc. They seemed pretty decent too. Not as good as Precision Twist or USA brands, but quite a bit less cost.
Don't have any adjustable reamers. What I do on question mark stuff is just call KBC, they have a way of looking up country of origin. If they are Chinese, well, then at least you know that going into it the deal. Might be ok or maybe not. Travers & other vendors do the same thing with their house brand, it can mean darn near anything depending on the tool.
Anything TMX/Poland is usually very decent quality IMO. I'm seeing some new euro countries on labels now, Serbia for example. Not much actual purchasing history though.
Don't have any adjustable reamers. What I do on question mark stuff is just call KBC, they have a way of looking up country of origin. If they are Chinese, well, then at least you know that going into it the deal. Might be ok or maybe not. Travers & other vendors do the same thing with their house brand, it can mean darn near anything depending on the tool.
Anything TMX/Poland is usually very decent quality IMO. I'm seeing some new euro countries on labels now, Serbia for example. Not much actual purchasing history though.
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Brent H
Ultra Member
I got the stub drills on @PeterT 's recommendation that they worked well - they do and thanks Peter for the heads up. 
Adjustable reamers are great in certain applications for sneaking up on a bore size, however, they are adjustable and only as good as the operator. We have a very expensive ones at work here and I would not say they are the "oh la la" of fit and finish, but they do work well.
The adjustable reamers will be sized from a max to a min diameter and they ramp up to the max diameter by loosening the backing nut and tightening the advance nut to push the reamer blades up a slope as it were. Most reamers (sized ones) are good for 2 to 6 thou reaming (roughly) I would put the adjustable ones at 1 to 3 thou and you run them by hand. Most come with a tap handle square end. Perhaps other have run them on a spinning machine?
The good thing about the adjustable ones is that they run fine in both metric and imperial ....hahahahaha
Adjustable reamers are great in certain applications for sneaking up on a bore size, however, they are adjustable and only as good as the operator. We have a very expensive ones at work here and I would not say they are the "oh la la" of fit and finish, but they do work well.
The adjustable reamers will be sized from a max to a min diameter and they ramp up to the max diameter by loosening the backing nut and tightening the advance nut to push the reamer blades up a slope as it were. Most reamers (sized ones) are good for 2 to 6 thou reaming (roughly) I would put the adjustable ones at 1 to 3 thou and you run them by hand. Most come with a tap handle square end. Perhaps other have run them on a spinning machine?
The good thing about the adjustable ones is that they run fine in both metric and imperial ....hahahahaha
The last Groz item I purchased, a grease gun, was a total fail. I have some other Groz stuff that's not to bad though.
I got the stub drills on @PeterT 's recommendation that they worked well - they do and thanks Peter for the heads up.
Which set did you get?
I usually order it regardless, they’ll ship it quickly. Sometimes it is a stocking issue between stores.
The kbc branded stuff is ok, better than busy bee imho, but not premium by any stretch
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here is my old post if its the same PN
https://canadianhobbymetalworkers.com/threads/kbc-stub-length-drill-set.1736/
https://canadianhobbymetalworkers.com/threads/kbc-stub-length-drill-set.1736/
Yup. That's what I attempted to order. Guess I'll just go ahead and order a set regardless of the back order warning.
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Daaaa. How did I miss this one. I searched for KBC related threads.
francist
Super User
I think you’ll find there may be some variance. The majority of end mills I’ve got from them in their KBC brand are marked Korea; taps are frequently Bosnia / Herzegovina, and many of the reamers have been TMX from Poland. That said, they all perform well for me but if origin is a primary concern the safe bet would be to ask them first.
Frank beat me to it. I was just typing essentially the same...
Well, I'm not quite sure one could count on that. We were talking about specific drills here that happen to be from Europe, but I can think of lots of things under the KBC/house brand label that are typical Chinese you would find anywhere else. That's why I was suggesting if it was something where it mattered to you, maybe best to call them. With a lot of tooling they will specifically say the brand so I'm not entirely clear on why the house brand for certain items (but all the retailers do the same thing).
