I just bought a Freud blade that says it is made with Titanium Carbide, rather than tungsten carbide. I did a google search and found it does exist, but information is spotty. Is this actually something new, or just a meaningless marketing scheme?
Don't know about its use in a cutting edge, but it SHOULD be a doozy.
I worked in a die shop and TC was the plating we used when TN was not up to the job.
Googling for "titanium carbide" produced this as the second entry:
Not new, but not just marketing stuff either.
Carbide, all by itself, isn't all that useful. It can be used as a lapping compound (not quite as hard as diamond but pretty close). But, it doesn't look metalic or stick together like you see on saw blades and router bits. All by itself it's an extremely brittle crumbly material.
The titanium, tungsten, cobalt, chromium, etc. are referred to as the "binder" and are used to "glue" the carbide grains together. Essentially, powdered carbide is mixed with the powdered metal binder. They are then subjected to extreme heat and pressure. The result is the familiar metallic thing we are all accustomed to seeing on the tips of saw blades or router bits. It gets sharpened with a diamond wheel.
Different grades of carbide are created using different ratios of carbide to binder, various sizes of carbide grains, different pressures and temperatures, and other additives. In general carbides range from extremely hard and wear resistant (but brittle): ISO class C1, to extremely impact resistant (but soft): ISO class C8. Most woodworking tools use C2 and C3 carbides. These are also suitable for working soft non-ferrous metals (aluminum, copper, brass, etc.) and cast iron. C6 and C7 grades are most often used for machining ferrous metals (steel). Grades C7 C8 get used for masonry (rock drilling, etc.).
Titanium is just a different binder than tungsten. It shouldn't be confused with the coating which is often put on cutting tools. Titanium Nitride is the vapor deposited coating with the gold appearance. It makes the surface very hard and very smooth. It is just a surface treatment, not part of the carbide. It can be applied to steel, cast iron, etc.
H> I just bought a Freud blade that says it is made with Titanium Carbide,
Thanks for taking the time to explain it; I never knew any of that.
You're confusing two different things, the compounding metal and the binder. They aren't the same.
A "carbide" is a chemical compound of carbon and some other element, usually a metal. Titanium carbide is a compound of titanium and carbon, just as tungsten carbide is a compound of tungsten and carbon, boron carbide is a compound of boron and carbon, and silicon carbide is a compound of silicon and carbon.
Each of these has its own unique properties--the one that they all share is that they are quite hard, _how_ hard depends on which particular compound you're discussing. Beyond that they vary in melting point, density, chemical and nuclear properties, etc.
The compound is typically provided as a powder that is then bound using cobalt or another metal as a matrix and binder. That metal though is separate from the carbide itself. Tungsten carbide bound with cobalt is a very different substance from cobalt carbide bound with tungsten for example.
No, it's a different compounding element.
This may seem like a pedantic distinction, but sometimes it's crucially important--for example if the spec says that the finished part must be tungsten-free, then machining it with tungsten carbide bound with titanium would not meet the spec, but machining it with titanium carbide bound with cobalt would.
Thanks for the corrections. You are absolutely right. A while back (1999) I did a whole bunch of research on this topic (Micro-100 is about two miles from my home). I ended up posting a summary in an article here in the wreck:
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