Carbide Manufacturers
Question from an Engineer
We have devices with ~ 1 inch blocks flying through pulverized coal laden air at ~ 4000 fpm. The brazed tungsten carbide cloth cladding that lasts years in other areas wears away quickly in this application.
I’m looking for sources for crudely finished tungsten carbide blanks. Plates, blocks, bars or rods.
Any suggestions?
Thanks
Dan T
Answer
We supply carbide at Carbide Processors
There are thousands of grades and hundreds of manufacturers of carbide. The right grade in them right manufacturer can make a huge difference in price and performance. If you do it right you really can’t get a much better product for much less money.
What you want is “as sintered” parts. These are just the way they came out of the sintering furnace. No post sintering grinding.
If you’re going to braze these parts in place you may need some post-sintering braze treatment.
You also need to select the right grade. As an example, our Cermet 2 grade gives extremely long life cutting man-made materials such as MDF, Corian, etc. It is not a particularly good grade for sawmills because there is too much impact in sawmills. On the other hand our Super C grade gives 5 to 10 times the life of ordinarycarbide in sawmills but it doesn’t have the wear life that Cermet 2 does in man-made materials.
The grade you need depends on what kind of wear you are experiencing. Currently I look at wear from about 17 different ways when I do a failure analysis.
Sometimes carbide wear is caused by micro-chipping which means you need a tougher grade. Sometimes it is caused by straight abrasion which means you need a harder grade. Sometimes it is a chemical or electrochemical process in which case an alloy binder can make a huge improvement.
We deal with a couple dozen carbide suppliers around the world and each has its own personality. Some are much more expensive than others, some have much faster delivery, many have their own special grades and many have their own specialties.
If you want some help with this project, feel free to contact me.
Tom Walz
president@CarbideProcessors.com
800 346-8274
Tags: About Carbide Processors
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