b'Ceramic Surprisestools in the machining industry. So he had no trouble identifying some lesser-known applications for these tools.Oneiscuttinghardened stainless steel.Stainless steel is an area that a lot of people never think of ce-ramic for, he said. Its got to be hard, thoughabove, say, 32 to 35 Rockwellbecause were going so fast and (therefore) cut so hot. If the steel is below that hardness level, you will melt it and light it on fire.Another lesser-known ceramic application cited by Howard is cut-ting powder metal, which is popular in the automotive industry.That material is both abrasive and creates heat, and those are the things that wear out tools the fastest, he said. So for this appli-cation, people will go from car-bide straight to CBN, and the cost difference between those two is astronomical.Ceramic tools, however, hold up well when cutting powder metal and dont cost as much as CBNGreenleaftools. Xsytin-360 solid-ceramic endmills feature internally grown reinforcing for greater strength.Howard also noted that ceramic tools are a good choice for cuttingSo people say theyre going toin some cases.compacted graphite iron, whichgo really, really slow and changeSome customers were using OD he described as a fairly new typetools a lot, Howard said. But whengrinding or surface grinding for of cast iron thats very dense andwe get a few brave people that let ushardened materials just because strong. Today, he said, CGI is usedplay with ceramic, they go, Oh, mythats the traditional method that to make many diesel engines be- God, I never knew I could do this. has been used, Dillaman said. But cause it allows manufacturers towith ceramic inserts, you can re-use a smaller engine block that canBetter Than Grinding move large amounts of material take more compression. At Greenleaf, Dillaman and hismuch quicker than you could in a When they invented this stuff,colleagues have had success usinggrinding application.tooling people loved it becauseceramic inserts to replace grindingIn addition, he noted that users of it just carves up cutting tools, heceramic inserts in these cases arent said. And the cost justificationabout the authorlimited by the form on a grinding wasnt there to go to CBN or PCDwheel. Instead, they can program because it wears that stuff out too. William Leventondifferent cutting profiles to meet He pointed out, however, thatis a contributingdifferent requirements.NTK makes ceramic tools that canwriter for CTE.Dillamanalsoreportedthat cut CGI for 10 times less than theContact him atGreenleaf got good results when it cost of carbide tools. But few in the609-920-3335pitted ceramic inserts against PCD or wleventon@industry know this. gmail.com. in an aluminum-cutting application 40SEPTEMBER 2022 Ceramics.indd 40 8/17/22 10:59 AM'