More than a century of expertise in cutting tool manufacturing, combined with powerful R&D resources, place Guhring at the forefront of technical innovations in cutting tools. Guhring meets specific customer requirements—from process proposal to production application—with quality cutting tool solutions. With approximately 8,000 employees across the globe, and more than 70 production locations in 48 countries, Guhring is a powerful metalworking resource.
Cutting tool manufacturers with robust R&D departments are continually striving to optimize a tool’s performance in challenging materials or applications, often with the goal of extending the tool’s productivity and tool life. It comes as no surprise that the material being machined plays an enormous role in the tool’s potential longevity.
The machining characteristics of many materials can be quite detrimental to the life of the cutting tools, resulting in plastic deformation, abrasive wear, material buildup on cutting edges, and poor chip evacuation. To some extent, these effects can be reduced by adjusting the operating parameters and/or coolant, but the reduction in tool life is still an issue with a negative effect on production costs. Achieving better tool life in challenging materials is therefore a target for cutting tool R&D teams, and is at the core of many highly specialized designs.
“What’s so special about this tool?”
A cutting tool developed as a material specialist may have at its “roots” a customized carbide substrate. Minute changes in grain size and cobalt content, combined with carefully controlled sintering processes, will produce carbide that has varying degrees of hardness and toughness adapted to tackle a given workpiece material and cutting operation.
Coatings enhance a cutting tool’s features by providing additional heat and abrasion resistance, and even aiding in reducing friction and improving chip flow. The details of coating composition and characteristics could take up an entire book, but the selection of a coating that best addresses a given workpiece material is also essential.
Highly specialized point designs, cutting edge geometries and edge preparations -- such as honing or polishing -- also factor in to a cutting tool’s performance in a challenging material. Is the desired result a sharp, shearing action that cleanly cuts a soft or gummy material? Or is the goal a lower horsepower draw, with reduced axial or radial cutting forces? Are there coolant holes integrated into the tool to deliver coolant right to the cutting edge for lubrication, heat dissipation, and chip evacuation? Manufacturers’ R&D departments fine-tune every element of a tool’s design to take these factors into account.
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I am always looking for steel cutting drills, I found cheap ones, but they don’t get the job done. Help me plz!
20A radiuses cutting edge has to be a great idea! I am an old tool and die maker with long ago retirement, always sharpens my own drills!
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