solid carbide

mrbigg · Post by **mrbigg** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 7:02 am

hi al,

you seem to be the official carbon steel guru here, so i thought id ask you about these mountains of dull solid carbide end mills i have at work. is this the same kind of carbon steel that can be made into knives? can these be recycled that way?

Vagrant · Post by **Vagrant** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 7:35 am

The carbide cutting tools are not steel or carbon [shucky darn]. They are one of the many carbides [tungstun c. titanium c. etc.etc.] they are far to brittle for knives. Their shape and thickness makes them work on a lathe or milling machine, but if made long and thin like a knife they would shatter easily and the edge would chip as soon as it came in contact with anything you would want to cut. The thick shape and almost right angle edges make them work as cutting tools.

mrbigg · Post by **mrbigg** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 7:41 am

oh well there goes my get rich quick scheme

thanks tho for the great info! you're right about them being brittle, you can snap em just tightening the chuck too much! at $30-$100 a pop depending, it would be nice to re-use the metal...

Vagrant · Post by **Vagrant** » Wed Dec 17, 2003 8:12 am

I had someone that wanted to give me a bucket full of titanium plated carbide inserts [very used]. I couldn't think of anything I could do with them. I think they got a buck or two at the scrap metal yard. I was there looking for brass a week or two later and they wanted to sell them to me, new part time guy there thought they were brass [they were in the brass section because it was indoors and in poor light looked a little like brass].