Throw-away tip

In conventional small-scale indexable inserts of a high-pressure sintered material has been a problem that, without a toolholder-clamping hole, attachment to a holder is complicated and the clamping force is weak. This is because readily machining a hole having a curved contour into a high-pressure sintered material has been difficult. A clamping hole is machined into an indexable insert constituted from a high-pressure sintered material and a carbide to which it is unitarily sintered, by performing laser machining of the requisite conformation while adjusting the beam output power, enhancing by means of a galvanometer mirror the beam light-harvesting, and controlling to high precision the beam irradiating position. Small-scale indexable inserts of a high-pressure sintered material thereby may be readily and securely mounted by means of a clamping screw onto toolholders, which provides for shortened setup time, improved machining precision, and enhanced mounting reliability.