Sep. 08, 2025
Hardware
10 Facts You Must Know About Tungsten Carbide In
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What is so special about tungsten carbide?
Tungsten carbide is a particularly remarkable material due to its unique combination of properties, which make it highly valuable in various industrial applications as well as in consumer products. Here are some of the aspects that make tungsten carbide special:
Hardness: Tungsten carbide is one of the hardest materials available, second only to diamonds on the Mohs hardness scale. This property makes it extremely resistant to scratching and wear, which is why it is commonly used in cutting tools, industrial machinery, and abrasives.
Durability: Due to its hardness, tungsten carbide maintains its shape and sharpness over time, which translates into longer tool life and reduced maintenance costs in industrial applications.
High density: Tungsten carbide has a high density, giving it a significant weight for its size. This characteristic is often utilized in applications where mass is beneficial, such as in sinkers for fishing and counterweights in machinery.
Resistance to corrosion and heat: Tungsten carbide exhibits excellent resistance to corrosion and can withstand high temperatures, further enhancing its utility in various applications, including those in harsh environments.
Toughness: Despite its hardness, tungsten carbide has a certain level of toughness, meaning it can absorb impact without cracking or breaking. This makes it ideal for use in tools that experience shock loads.
Versatility: Tungsten carbide can be manufactured in various forms and many applications, from industrial cutting and drilling tools to consumer jewellery and wear-resistant coatings.
Aesthetic appeal: In jewellery, tungsten carbide is popular for its weight, scratch resistance, and ability to maintain a polished finish, making it an attractive choice for rings and other accessories.
Cost-effective: While it has a premium price compared to some materials, its durability and longevity often result in cost savings over time, particularly for industrial tools.
Given these outstanding properties, tungsten carbide has established itself as a critical material in many sectors, including manufacturing, construction, mining, and even jewellery, making it an all-around versatile material that excels in both functional and aesthetic applications.
what is tungsten carbide used for?
Tungsten carbide is widely used across various industries and applications due to its exceptional hardness, durability, and resistance to wear and corrosion. Here are some of the primary uses of tungsten carbide:
Cutting Tools: Tungsten carbide is extensively used in the manufacture of cutting tools, such as drills, end mills, and inserts. Its hardness allows these tools to maintain their sharpness and resist wear when cutting through hard materials like metal, wood, and composites.
Mining and Drilling: In the mining sector, tungsten carbide is used in drill bits, rock bits, and other equipment because of its ability to withstand the harsh conditions of drilling into earth and rock.
Industrial Machinery: Tungsten carbide parts are utilized in machinery that requires high wear resistance, including gear teeth, bearings, and valve seats. These components benefit from tungsten carbide's durability and performance over time.
Jewellery: Tungsten carbide is increasingly used in the production of wedding bands, rings, and other types of jewellery. Its weight, scratch resistance, and ability to maintain a polished appearance make it an attractive option for consumers.
Abrasives: Due to their hardness, tungsten carbide powder is used in abrasive applications, including grinding wheels and sandpaper, to enhance their cutting performance.
Wear Parts: Tungsten carbide is utilized in the manufacture of wear-resistant parts, which includes nozzles, chutes, and linings in various industrial applications where friction and wear are significant concerns.
Military Applications: Tungsten carbide is used in armour-piercing ammunition, projectile tips, and other military applications due to its high density and hardness.
Cutting and Shaping: In woodworking and metalworking, tungsten carbide-tipped tools (such as saw blades, chisels, and router bits) are favoured for their performance and longevity.
Oil and Gas Industry: Tungsten carbide components are used in drilling equipment and tools employed in the extraction of oil and gas because of their resistance to wear and high-temperature environments.
Medical Equipment: Certain medical tools, such as surgical instruments and dental burs, are made from tungsten carbide due to its hardness and biocompatibility.
Sports Equipment: In some sports applications, tungsten carbide is used in the manufacturing of darts, bowling balls, and even some types of golf clubs to improve performance.
Overall, the combination of hardness, durability, and versatility makes tungsten carbide valuable in a myriad of applications, ranging from industrial to consumer products.
why is tungsten carbide so hard?
Tungsten carbide is renowned for its exceptional hardness, and this is primarily due to its unique structure and the properties of its constituent materials. Here are the key reasons why tungsten carbide is so hard:
Composition: Tungsten carbide is a composite material made up of tungsten and carbon. The strong covalent bonds formed between carbon atoms and tungsten atoms contribute significantly to its hardness. When tungsten reacts with carbon, it forms a very hard compound that is much harder than either element alone.
Crystalline Structure: Tungsten carbide typically crystallizes in a cubic structure (specifically, the face-centred cubic or FCC structure) that allows for efficient packing of the atoms. This dense packing increases the material's hardness and strength.
High Bond Strength: The bonds between tungsten and carbon atoms in tungsten carbide are very strong. This high bond strength means that the material can resist deformation and wear effectively.
Increased Density: Tungsten carbide has a high density (around 15.5 g/cm³), which contributes to its mechanical strength and resistance to wear. The higher density means that there are more atoms per unit volume, which also leads to a stronger material.
Hardness Measurement: Tungsten carbide is often measured using the Mohs scale of mineral hardness and is typically rated between 8.5 and 9.5, depending on its specific composition and treatment. This places it just below the diamond, making it one of the hardest known materials.
Composite Nature: In many applications, tungsten carbide is used in the form of a composite material, which can further enhance its hardness and toughness through the addition of other materials or specific processing methods.
Formation of Carbides: like many transition metals, Tungsten can form hard carbide compounds with carbon. The formation of these carbides results in materials that are not only hard but also wear-resistant, making tungsten carbide ideal for industrial applications.
The combination of these factors leads to tungsten carbide's hardness and durability, making it a popular choice for applications such as cutting tools, industrial machinery, jewellery, and armour-piercing ammunition.
Why is tungsten carbide so expressive?
Tungsten carbide is considered expensive for several reasons:
Raw Material Cost: Tungsten is a rare metal that is primarily mined and extracted from ores. The extraction process is complex and requires significant energy and resources, contributing to the overall cost of tungsten carbide.
Manufacturing Process: Producing tungsten carbide involves sophisticated techniques, including powder metallurgy, which requires precision and advanced technology. The process of mixing tungsten powder with carbon and then sintering it at high temperatures is time-consuming and resource-intensive.
Properties: Tungsten carbide is known for its exceptional hardness and wear resistance. It is nearly as hard as diamond, making it an ideal material for various applications, including cutting tools, industrial machinery, and wear-resistant surfaces. The performance benefits of these properties often justify the higher price.
Limited Supply: The supply of tungsten is limited globally, and geopolitical factors can affect availability and prices. Much of the world’s tungsten supply comes from a few countries, which can lead to fluctuations in cost based on market demand and supply chain issues.
Applications: Tungsten carbide is in high demand in industries such as mining, manufacturing, and jewellery, where its durability and aesthetic appeal are valued. High demand in these sectors can drive up prices.
Customization and Design: In jewellery, tungsten carbide is often used for custom and designer pieces, which adds to the cost due to craftsmanship and design considerations.
Investment in R&D: Companies often invest significantly in research and development to improve the performance and applications of materials like tungsten carbide, which can also contribute to costs.
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While tungsten carbide is more expensive than many other materials, its durability, performance, and versatility often make it a worthwhile investment for specific applications.
Carbide Rotary Burrs, also known as die grinder bits or rotary files, are essential tools for cutting, shaping, grinding, and removing sharp edges or excess material from a wide variety of surfaces.(deburring).
Whether you're a metalworker, woodcarver, jeweller, engineer or DIY enthusiast, carbide burrs offer precision, durability, and versatility for countless applications.
In this guide, we’ll show you how to choose the right burr for the job, what tools to use them in, how to work safely and efficiently, and how to get the best results across different materials and shapes.
Helpful note: When drilling into hard metals like stainless steel or titanium, carbide micro drills are ideal due to their strength and precision.
For cutting slots, routing, profiling, contouring, counter-boring, and reaming you would use a carbide end mill, carbide slot drill or a carbide router. For cutting and shaping stone or glass you would use a Diamond Burr.
Die grinder bits can be used on a multitude of materials: metals including steel, aluminium and cast iron, all types of wood, acrylics, fibreglass and plastics. Tungsten Carbide burrs are also perfect for working on softer metals such as gold, platinum and silver as they last a long time with no chipping or breaking.
Certain types of stone or fossils such as Whitby Jet can also benefit from the use of tungsten carbide burr bits, but these are the exception, and the rule would usually be of its stone, use diamond burrs.
Different cuts of tungsten carbide burs are best suited to certain materials, see the next point below to find out about the different cuts.
Yes, the clue is in the title...Ideally, solid carbide burrs are used in Air Tools i.e. Die Grinders, Pneumatic rotary tools and high speed engravers. Micro Motors, Pendant Drills, Flexible Shafts, and hobby rotary tools such as a Dremel.
Helpful note: Always use a handpiece that runs true (with no wobble)
Carbide burrs are widely used for metalwork, tool making, engineering, model engineering, wood carving, jewellery making, welding, chamfering, casting, deburring, grinding, cylinder head porting and sculpting.
They are used in the aerospace, automotive, dental, metal sculpting, and metal smith industries; to name but a few.
Single cut (one flute) carbide burrs have a right-handed (Up cut) spiral flute. These tend to be used with stainless steel, hardened steel, copper, cast iron, and ferrous metals and will remove material quickly. Use for heavy stock removal, milling, deburring and cleaning.
Double cut (2 flutes cut across each other) carbide burrs tend to be used on ferrous and non-ferrous metals, aluminium, soft steel and also for all non-metal materials such as plastics and hard wood. They have more cutting edges and will remove material faster, leaving a smoother finish than a single cut due to producing smaller chips as they cut away the material. So this will give you a medium-light stock removal. These are the most popular cut and will see you through most applications.
Double-cut burrs for use on non-ferrous materials and plastics tend to have wide chip space and are often referred to as Aluminum cut.
Similar to double cut are Diamond Cut carbide burrs which have multiple cutting faces, often found on router end mills.
The below image indicates the double cut, single cut and again, the double cut or diamond cut.
There is also a cutter known as a left-hand cut carbide burr which you would use if you needed to reverse the rotation of the burr due to a double angle for instance.
The shank is the mount or spindle of your burr that fits into your rotary tool, die grinder, CNC machines, micro motor etc; so to make it clear, it is the opposite end to the working part of the tool. These will be labelled in inches or millimetres, i.e. a 1/4 inch shank (") or a 6 millimetre shank (mm) These are usually found in the following shank sizes:
Long shank carbide burrs can also be found, and these are great for detailed carving in hard-to-reach areas of your work.
Typically carbide cutters come in standard diameter head sizes such as these:
Deciding on what shape to use will depend on the profile or cut you are looking to achieve.
These differently shaped burs will get into many a nook and cranny and produce some interesting profiles.
Use a ball or spherical-shaped carbide burr to create concave cuts in your material or to shape and hollow out an area. Small carbide ball burrs from as tiny as 0.5mm in diameter are ideal for intricate carving projects. Many wood carvers, stone carvers and metal engravers use these carbide carving burrs in a hobby drill, micro motor or a high-speed handpiece. As we mentioned before, make sure to use a rotary handpiece that runs true. i.e with no wobble.
Use for rounding off edges and making concave cuts. Use the pointed end for cutting in hard-to-reach areas and acutely angled contours.
Use inverted cone shaped tungsten carbide burrs for making v-cuts and rear side chamfering.
Good for rounded edges and surface finishing in difficult-to-reach areas or tight and narrow angles and contours. The round nose or ball nose cone is often referred to as a taper shape.
Choose from an end-cut cylinder (with a cutting edge on the end) for contour finishing. Cylinder without end cut (flat on the end and no cutting edge) for contour finishing and right-angled corners or a round nose or ball nose shape which is a cylinder-shaped carbide burr but with a rounded head.
A unique wheel-shaped burr with a smooth top, round edges and fluted sides. Great for channel work and shaping.
Choose from 60-degree or 90-degree angle countersink burs, sometimes referred to as carbide cone burrs. These tool bits are ideal for beveling, counter-boring, chamfering and for getting into acute angled areas of your work. Wonderful for material removal and harder metals.
Small carving projects with intricate detailing often require multiple burrs of different shapes, this is when a carbide burr set comes in handy.
"I love the smaller version and range of points in the carbide burr sets. I work on Whitby Jet which is 3-4 on the Moh hardness scale. The material is a natural organic fossil and does have the occasional inclusion of other minerals in it. These can be calcite grains (called spar) or flecks of pyrites both of which are much harder than the Jet. This is where the benefits of the sharpness of the cut and the lovely variety of points in these carbide burrs work well" - Hal Redvers-Jones. The Whitby Jet Heritage Centre.
The speed at which you use your carbide burr in your rotary tool or die grinder will depend on the material you're using it on and the contour being produced, but it's safe to say you do not need to exceed speeds of 35,000 RPM. The table below shows some approximate speeds.
Helpful note: If the burs are chipping easily this could be due to the speed being too slow. However, it's ideal to start the cutting slowly, increasing the speed as you go along. Higher speeds will prevent clogging in the flutes of your burrs.
Diameter of Burr RPM 1.6mm or 1/16" 25,000 - 35,000 2.35mm or 3/32" 17,000 - 26,000 3mm or 1/8" 17,000 - 26,000 6mm or 1/4" 11,000 - 16,500 12mm or 1/2" 8,000 - 12,000 16mm or 5/8" 7,650 - 11,500As with all drill bits and burrs, let the burr do the work and apply only a little pressure otherwise the cutting edges of the flutes will chip away or become smooth too quickly, reducing the life of your burr.
Good quality Carbide Burrs are machine ground from a specially chosen grade of carbide. Due to the extreme hardness of the Tungsten Carbide, they can be used on much more demanding jobs than HSS (High-Speed Steel).
Carbide Burrs also perform better at higher temperatures than high speed steel cutters so you can run them hotter, for longer.
HSS burrs will start to soften at higher temperatures so die grinder bits made from tungsten carbide are always a better choice for long-term performance.
When using your die grinder bit try not to keep it still for too long as this will prevent the burr from digging and jabbing into your material causing unsightly marks and roughness.
End on an 'upstroke for a smoother finish to your work.
Helpful note: Using a carbide burr on Soft Cast iron is a great way to de-clog them.
I hope you feel better informed now as to how you should use your carbide burrs, the different cuts of carbide burrs, why you should use them and what you should use them on.
For carving into stone you will need to use Diamond Burrs.
If you are looking for more details, kindly visit Tungsten Carbide Burrs Manufacturer.
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