[QuinnSjoblom]

Quinn,

If you can find an aluminum specific grooving/parting insert, please let me know. I've never been able to source one. As the width of the insert increases, the strength and stability of your insert/tool go up dramatically, however the cutting forces do as well. For large stable workpieces, a wider 3mm grooving tool will perform better (assuming you have the horsepower to drive it), but with thin wall or slender components you may find the forces generated by the tool to be detrimental to your operation.

I have done very deep parting (5.5" Diameter) with a 2mm width insert but ended up wrecking the insert, tool, and workpiece after 10 parts or so. It was a good lesson that no single tool can do all jobs well.

I have never produced parting operations on my manual lathe which do not require a face cleanup for good final surface finish, however I have seen some CNC's running coolant through the tool produce excellent finishes even in very deep parting operations.

Here was one example, no idea on the quality of it. Could be cheap garbage, but I did find a few others searching Google and ebay. https://www.ebay.com/itm/MGGN250-V-2-5mm-Width-Parting-Grooving-Insert-for-Cutting-Aluminum-for-MGEHR/252348532081?hash=item3ac1250571:g:C1wAAOSw8RJXB4d N

I'll start off with the 2mm tool and some good inserts to see what kind of results I can get. Most of my parts have a bore through the middle so in most cases my parting tool doesn't need to go any more than 10mm deep or so. That should help me quite a bit. I can imagine things get much trickier as you go further in depth.