Having become confident that I can now turn EN1 to size and finish, I've just spent a weekend making a real bugger of a piece of 1/2inch EN8. All I've been trying to do is turn it to 12mm with a good finish and finally almost got to a decent finish. Even fine cuts with a small round nose HSS tool sharp enough to cut fingers and a going slow rpm didn't do the trick.
What I can't understand is the last piece of EN8 turned up really nicely with care. EN8 shouldn't pose any difficulty should it?
In the mill the finish is poor too - just cutting a flat with a 10mm slot drill produced a horrible finish. The bar was colour coded, just marked with an "8" on the end, so could be any old crap really I suppose.
I've no coolant system yet, perhaps a tall stool and a bodily secretion is the answer?
Steve