In the modern world, the techniques, tools, and materials reach different levels to meet end-need. To mold making it takes a long way to select the right materials, tools, processes, and machines for products development.
In today’s world, continuous innovation and new procedures started to manufacture quality tools with improving the life of cutting tools. The automotive and machine-building industries are making a way to decrease the operation cost and increase the quality of machine parts to boost productivity. It helps to improve the quality and high tolerance of parts as the demand for high tolerance parts is increasing day in day out.
In modern manufacturing, mold making requires two main materials for drill, end mill, and insert cutter:
1) Carbide
2) High-Speed Steel (HSS).
What is Carbide and Coated Carbide Inserts?
Carbide is any group of compounds made up of carbon and other substances are metal, silicon, or boron. There are a number of carbide compounds in this group: Calcium Carbide, Iron Carbide, Aluminium Carbide, Silicon Carbide, Tungsten Carbide. It uses to make hard tools like durable cutter, which is easy to chip and fracture.
The cemented carbide inserts coats in one or two layers applied by CVD or PVD for increasing wear resistance of the inserts. This tool is mandatory in the injection molding industry, known as coated. The coating on the tools and machines ensure to improve the wear resistance properties.
Coated Tools:
It has lower friction, high heat resistance, and high cutting speed. It guarantees longer tool life. There are a few materials coated on carbide inserts.
- Aluminium Oxide (Al2O3)
- Diamond Coating
Techniques/Design Used For Coated Materials:
PVD and CVD are the main techniques of the coating process for carbide inserts. Both are beneficial for machining materials for chip cutting edge.
Features of Carbide Inserts:
Three main features of carbide inserts are here:
The grade of substrate use depends on the needs of the application. It’s important to improve substrate materials. The coating on the carbide inserts obtains from CVD. Chemical reaction on any application brings to its substrate surface.
Coating of Substrate Grade:
1) SUBSTRATE MATERIAL:
It coats with a thin layer, from 3 to 20 microns. A coating compromises many sub-layers involving titanium nitride, aluminium oxide, and titanium carbon. This thin layer helps in improving the performance of complex parts.
2) COATING:
The coating on carbide inserts uses in the industry as the cutting tool. It’s a complex coating used in hard parts to produce quality tooling.
Coating of Carbide Inserts:
This works well with a few ferrous materials:
- Steel
- Stainless Steel
- Iron
- Cast Iron
- Titanium
3) INSERT GEOMETRY:
Mold designs made to meet the geometric needs of the product. Indexable type inserts use for both one or more single point cutting tools. The product develops itself inside the cover to form a final shape. Extra features can add to design the undercut. It takes unique consideration on the process of coating and coating materials on the specification of each application. Some indexable carbide inserts characteristics in a milling tool:
- Tolerance ability.
- Shapes, sizes, and types.
- Wall thickness
- Edge cut preparation
- Cutting point configurations
- Clarity and Facet sizes
Different types of cutting tools take into experiment to produce components. There is a huge demand for quality and durable products in the market.
