Types of tool materials

High-speed steels (HSS)

High-speed tool steels consist of iron and carbon with differing amounts of alloying elements such as
tungsten, chromium, vanadium and cobalt. When hardened, these steels are brittle and the cutting
edge will chip on impact or with rough handling. They have a high resistance to abrasion but are not
tough enough to withstand high shock loads. These steels will cut at high speeds and will retain their
hardness even when the cutting edge is operating at temperatures around 600°C

Apart from being used to manufacture the cutting tools already mentioned, high-speed steel is
available as ‘tool bits ’ in round or square section already hardened and tempered. The operator has
only to grind the required shape on the end before using.

Cemented carbides

Cemented carbides are produced by a powder metallurgy technique, i.e. by using metals in their
powder form. The final mixture of powders consists of various amounts of hard particles and a
binding metal. The hard particles give the material its hardness and abrasion resistance while the
binding metal provides the toughness. They are produced as tips and inserts of various sizes, shapes
and geometry. The most common hard particle used is tungsten carbide, but titanium, tantalum and
niobium carbides are often added in varying amounts. The binding metal used is cobalt, and various
grades of cemented carbides are obtained for cutting different groups of materials by mixing in
different proportions which determine the hardness and toughness of the material. In general,
increasing the amount of cobalt binder together with increasing the tungsten carbide grain size
contributes to increasing toughness, but also lowers the hardness, which reduces the wear
resistance.

Ceramic

All ceramic cutting tools have excellent wear resistance at high cutting speeds. There are a range of
ceramic grades available for a range of applications. Oxide ceramics are aluminium oxide based with
added zirconia for crack inhibition. This produces a material that is chemically stable but lacks
resistance to thermal shock. Mixed ceramics are available where the addition of cubic carbides or
carbonitrides improves toughness and thermal conductivity. Whisker-reinforced ceramics use silicon
carbide whiskers to dramatically increase toughness and enable the use of a cutting fluid.

Cermet

A cermet is a cemented carbide with titanium based hard particles. The name cermet is a
combination of ceramic and metal. In comparison to cemented carbide, cermet has improved wear
resistance and reduced smearing tendencies (tendency of the workpiece material to smear or cling
to the surface of the tool). These properties are offset through having a lower compressive strength
as well as inferior thermal shock which can be avoided by machining without the use of coolant.
Cermets can also be coated for improved wear resistance. Typical applications are in finishing
operations using low feeds and depth of cut where close tolerances and good surface finish is
required in workpiece material such as stainless steels, nodular cast iron and low-carbon steels.
Diamond

Polycrystalline diamond (PCD) is a composite of diamond particles sintered together with a metallic
binder. Diamond is the hardest and therefore the most abrasion resistant of all materials. As a
cutting-tool material, it has good wear resistance but lacks chemical stability at high temperatures.
Usually in the form of a brazed-in corner tip on an insert or as a thin diamond-coated film on a
carbide substrate, they are limited to non-ferrous materials, such as high silicon aluminium and non-
metals such as carbon reinforced plastics in turning and milling operations. Used with flood coolant,
PCD can be used in titanium super finishing applications. Like CBN, PCD is also referred to as a
superhard cutting material. Natural and synthetic diamonds have been used for many years to true
up and dress abrasive wheels. These are held in a holder of the required shape by vacuum brazing or
held in a powder metal matrix and can be single point tools, multi-point grit tools, blade tools or
cluster tools depending on the application.

Properties of cutting materials

To be effective, the material from which a cutting tool is made must possess certain properties, the
most important of which are red hardness, abrasion resistance and toughness.

1. Red hardness It is obvious that a cutting tool must be harder than the material being cut,
otherwise it will not cut. It is equally important that the cutting tool remains hard even when cutting
at high temperatures. The ability of a cutting tool to retain its hardness at high cutting temperatures
is known as red hardness. Current practice often uses, the term ’hot hardness‘.

2. Abrasion resistance When cutting, the edge of a cutting tool operates under intense pressure and
will wear due to abrasion by the material being cut. Basically, the harder the cutting-tool material
the better its resistance to abrasion.

3. Toughness A cutting-tool material which is extremely hard is unfortunately also brittle. This
means that a cutting edge will chip on impact if, e.g. the component being machined has a series of
slots and the cut is therefore intermittent. To prevent the cutting edge from chipping under such
conditions, it is necessary that the material has a certain amount of toughness. This can be achieved
only at the expense of hardness; i.e. as the toughness is increased so the hardness decreases. It can
be readily seen that no one cutting-tool material will satisfy all conditions at one time. A cutting tool
required to be tough due to cutting conditions will not be at its maximum hardness and therefore
not be capable of fully resisting abrasion. Alternatively, a cutting tool requiring maximum hardness
will have maximum abrasion resistance but will not be tough to resist impact loads. The choice of
cutting-tool material is governed by the type of material to be cut and the conditions under which
cutting is to take place, as well as the cost of the tool itself. Remember that cutting tools are
expensive, and great care should be taken to avoid damage and consequent wastage both in use and
during any subsequent resharpening.