And they're recyclable!
November 23, 2017 1:16 PM   Subscribe

 
I'd wondered about this but never hard enough to look it up. But I wouldn't have guessed they were basically molded. Neat!
posted by aubilenon at 1:28 PM on November 23, 2017


I checked prices. Anywhere from $4 to $40 per insert wholesale from China. So those 10-packs might run a company $400.

A typical estimate is that an insert lasts about 30 minutes in cutting time. With softer materials they may last for years, iconel maybe minutes. If the insert lasts too long you wasted money buying them. If the lifetime is too short you lose money changing the tooling. So a bit of a balancing act.

So, about $8 to $80/hr just for the wear on the cutting surfaces, assuming nominal hardness selection.
posted by pdoege at 1:33 PM on November 23, 2017 [4 favorites]


Obligatory Python
posted by fearfulsymmetry at 1:36 PM on November 23, 2017 [6 favorites]


Tungsten carbide nanoparticles were just in the news as a possible breakthrough as a membrane material for fuel cells (used in hydrogen powered cars), compared to platinum, which is what they use now.
posted by eye of newt at 2:04 PM on November 23, 2017


Cool fact: Tungsten carbide is more dense than lead. Sailboat owners who have more money than sense make their keel ballast out of tungsten instead of lead.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 2:53 PM on November 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


Thank you man
posted by ColeHernandez at 2:59 PM on November 23, 2017


Neat!
posted by Tell Me No Lies at 2:59 PM on November 23, 2017


Also this leads directly to one of my favorite genres: Machining videos.
posted by Mei's lost sandal at 3:02 PM on November 23, 2017 [8 favorites]


this led me to go read up more about tungsten carbide, and to think it would be a great material to use in instrument strings - turns out the C string on my viola is already a tungsten alloy around a synthetic core (which would explain why it's lower than the g, while being about the same size and tension)
posted by idiopath at 3:19 PM on November 23, 2017 [5 favorites]


With softer materials they may last for years, inconel maybe minutes.

Ceramic inserts last longer on inconel. Watch your speeds and feeds, though.
posted by ZenMasterThis at 3:23 PM on November 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


Sailboat owners who have more money than sense make their keel ballast out of tungsten instead of lead.
Also goose hunters who can no longer use lead shot can buy tungsten shot at very fancy prices rather than steel shot.
posted by Bee'sWing at 3:27 PM on November 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


Cool fact: Tungsten carbide is more dense than lead. Sailboat owners who have more money than sense make their keel ballast out of tungsten instead of lead.

I was going to joke that they only do that because they can't get their hands on depleted uranium ballast, but that's apparently a thing that's used in some ridiculously high-end boats. (You probably can't shoot it at geese, though. Yet.)
posted by Zonker at 4:03 PM on November 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


Also this leads directly to one of my favorite genres: Machining videos.

Those are big chips!
posted by Chuckles at 4:22 PM on November 23, 2017


I've been led to believe that the Chinese inserts are more likely to fracture than the Western brands.
posted by wierdo at 4:56 PM on November 23, 2017


An "insert" is a replaceable piece of metal that is the actual cutting edge of a machining tool, for people like me who didn't know.
posted by straight at 6:59 PM on November 23, 2017 [3 favorites]


> Also this leads directly to one of my favorite genres: Machining videos.

This is worth 14 minutes of your time. Machines of loving grace indeed.

If you want to see the acrobats of the machining video world, you need swiss turning lathe videos. A friend has one in his shop that turns out tiny components for the epicyclic gearboxes in instrument machine heads, and it's 100% ‘how it do that?
posted by scruss at 7:40 PM on November 23, 2017 [2 favorites]


Anywhere from $4 to $40 per insert

Don't forget that trigons have six cutting edges, though.

...one of my favorite genres: Machining crash videos.

FTFY
posted by colin.jaquiery at 8:39 PM on November 23, 2017 [1 favorite]


Also this leads directly to one of my favorite genres: Machining videos.

Good lord that machine peeled that piece of metal like a potato!
posted by SageLeVoid at 3:53 AM on November 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


My wedding ring is made of this stuff. Extremely hard, apparently, but fragile, so if doctors/paramedics need to remove your wedding ring they can't just cut it once and bend it open (like gold or silver) or cut it twice and take the two halves off (like platinum), they have to hit it with a hammer or put it in a vice. Anyway, it was cheap and it looks cool. Never gets scratched, either.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 4:15 AM on November 24, 2017


Ah, you can use vice grips apparently. The ring just shatters.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 4:20 AM on November 24, 2017


“A Brief Chat about Carbide Tooling”—This Old Tony, 20 January 2017
posted by ob1quixote at 11:22 AM on November 24, 2017 [1 favorite]


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