Tungsten Powders for Cutting Tools & Wear Parts
Today’s industrial tools and wear parts have to withstand extreme loads while offering durability and long tool life. Our exceptionally hard and resistant tungsten carbide is the material of choice for the production of cutting edge cemented carbides used in our wear and tear parts.
SPEEPARTS TIPS
How to approach to get the “best fit” for a blade
Unfortunately, the “best blade” is not only a case of maximizing each of the properties below….it’s a trade-off. The biggest trade-off is balancing strength or hardness with toughness.
Some blades can be made to be exceptionally hard but will chip or crack if you drop them onto a hard surface. Conversely, a blade can be extremely tough and able to bend but will struggle to hold its edge. The stuff that makes steel strong (a high amount of carbon/carbides) generally lowers the toughness. By knowing how you plan to use the blade you will generally be able to determine the best steel for your situation. What condition a knife is utilized in is just as important as the material it is supposed to cut. A lot of properties have to come together in the material we choose.
The overall choice of material
In choosing the best blade you should pay particular attention to the type of material used in the blade. Alongside edge geometry and design, the blade material is a critical element that determines how a knife performs.
Carbide is essentially in a blade (i.e. a mix) and other elements to improve certain characteristics depending on the desired application. In the knife industry, different types of materials are created by varying the types of additive elements as well as how the blade is rolled and heated (i.e. the finishing process).
To get the best fit you have to know what the correct knife would be for you, which means that depending on the situation you would use a different composition of materials mixing the below key-properties in varying degrees of these. Even different machine speeds could lead to varied materials or angles.
Hardness
Hardness is the ability to resist deforming when subject to stress and applied forces. Hardness in knife steels is directly correlated to strength and is generally measured using the Rockwell scale (“HR..”).
Toughness
Toughness is the ability to resist damage like cracks or chips when subject to impact or “sudden loads”. Chipping is a knife’s worst enemy and never easy to fix. There are several different ways to measure toughness (i.e. Charpy, Izod) thus it is less standardized than hardness when it comes to knives. In general, the harder the steel, the less tough it’s likely to be.
Wear Resistance
Wear resistance is the steel’s ability to withstand damage from both abrasive and adhesive wear. Abrasive wear occurs when harder particles pass over a softer surface. Adhesive wear occurs when the debris is dislodged from one surface and attaches to the other. Wear resistance generally correlates with the steel’s hardness but is also heavily influenced by the specific chemistry of the material. In steels of equal hardness, the steel with larger carbides (think microscopic, hard, wear-resistant particles) will typically resist wearing better. However, carbides can become brittle and crack, thus decreasing toughness.
Corrosion Resistance
Corrosion resistance is the ability to resist corrosion such as rust caused by external elements like humidity, moisture, and salt. Note that high resistance to corrosion does involve a sacrifice in the overall edge performance.
Edge Retention
Edge Retention represents how long the blade will retain its sharpness when subject to periods of use. It is what everyone talks about these days, but unfortunately, the measurement of edge retention lacks any defined set of standards, and so much of the data is subjective. For SpeeParts, edge retention is a combination of wear resistance and an edge that resists deformation. The best is; trial and error of different angles with different hardness to get the right combination. SpeeParts has a lot of knowledge and can advise you in the right direction, but still, the last percentage of perfection has to be determined by trial and error which is used as a method to get the best fit in that situation.
Our Experience
Our experience is that we investigate the product you are cutting and the speed you use with this. SpeeParts already has solved many cases by using the earlier mentioned knowledge, but still, the best fit has to be determined by just trying out.
It could mean that we have to adjust the hardness of the product for the best result, but the customer has to be willing to go through this testing process.