Cutting extremely hard material

[jpwatkins]

Hi Everyone,

I am new to this forum.

I am wondering if you have help me.

I am trying to make some simple cuts and put some countersink holes. But the material is Chrome Carbide Overlay plate. And that is the problem. Chrome Carbide Overlay plate runs in the 63-67 Rockwell C range. "Normal" metal cutting blades and bits are useless. We can Plasma cut the material - which is good for rough cutting. We can water-jet or laser-cut - but we don't have this equipment inhouse and therefore it is time consuming and expensive. We can cut with Abrasive disc but even the small cuts will require a couple of discs to cut the piece.

Any recommendations for blades/tools to cut this hard of material using a chop saw, band saw or vertical mill would be greatly appreciated.

Jeff

 

[David Kirtley]

The vendors I looked at classify it as not being machinable. The only thing that comes to my mind is diamond tooling. Not going to be fast but it should cut. Probably will need flood cooling. They have a pretty good variety of bits available that they use to drill holes in glass even at big box stores. Saw blades as well. No idea of the scale of your project or time constraints.


Good luck.

 

[Richard King]

My Brother Tom has a small company called "Blue Ribbon Abrasives" He sells band saw blades and is an expert on all types of abrasives. Give him a call and see if he can help. http://www.blueribbonabrasives.com/

You can also call Norton who make all types of abrasives products I would think they have a help line.

http://www.nortonindustrial.com/

 

[joe_m]

Can you do EDM?

 

[jpwatkins]

Yes, EDM also works