[ihavenofish]

you know, the stuff your cutting tools are made of?

i have an object i would like to have made from carbide and would like to figure out how to do it myself.

has anyone tried this? is there a diamond coated cutter that will effectively machine the carbide blank?

[bhurts]

They make machinable carbide but I believe it needs to be treated afterwards. As far as I know the only way to machine regular carbide is grinding.

Ben

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[ihavenofish]

thats my first assumption as well. could you grind it on a mill though? id imagine the bits would be constantly getting smaller and youd have to compensate.

[bhurts]

I have done a lot of mechanical chrome grinding on a mill. You will need good grinding wheels and arbors. You will need to be able to spin the wheel fast enough and also have flood coolant. Try to helix into the profile if possible. If not make a lot of shallow passes or many side passes. Take 1-10 thou at a time. It's really a long process but I grind bearing journals for landing gear that way so it can be done to tolorances in the tenths on a decent mill.

Ben

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[bhurts]

You'll also need a diamond dresser to dress the wheels and yes a lot of remeasuring. If you set things up right you can know what your wheel is from the machine position.

Ben

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[juergenwt]

Either buy "Machinable Carbide" and have it heat treated or use Wire EDM.
Custom Engineered Titanium Carbide Parts and Components :: Ferro-TiC SBC

[ihavenofish]

Either buy "Machinable Carbide" and have it heat treated or use Wire EDM.

its a 3d contoured object. wire edm wont work.

sintering afterwards would still require final machining to size.

at this point im putting it in the "not viable" column. maybe ill revisit it later.

thanks for the suggestions.

[juergenwt]

Ferro - TIC can be machines with standard metal cutting machines and tools. Finish complete and Heat treat. It will not change in HT.

[ihavenofish]

interesting. how hot does it need for heat treat? can I do it myself. I have glass kilns but they only got to 1200C I think.

edit: oh, that's titanium carbide, not tungsten. not what im looking for.

[easymike29]

Depending on how much you want to spend.

Low Pressure Injection Molded Tungsten Carbide

Gene

[juergenwt]

You can find all the spec's here: Alloy Bonded TiC - Titanium Carbide Manufacturing Questions :: Ferro-TiC SBC

[ihavenofish]

yeah, I need tungsten carbide. titanium carbide is of no use to me. thanks though.