Shrink-fit insert body: General Industry Coverage

A PCBN cutting-edge tip brazed onto a carbide insert body provides an effective cutting tool for machining a host of materials, such as cast iron and hardened steel. However, making the indexable-insert tool requires either EDMing or laser machining precision-ground PCBN blanks to produce the tips, grinding carbide blanks to create pockets for the tips or buying preground, pre-pocketed blanks and brazing the tips into the pockets. This requires expensive brazing equipment, a furnace and skilled operators.

Thinking that there had to be a more efficient way, IDS Cutting Tools developed a patent-pending method for pressing PCBN tips to size in a mold and then thermally shrink fitting them in a P/M steel insert body, similar to the way a shrink-fit holder grasps a tool, noted Jackson Briggs, product manager for IDS, which has served the oil and gas industry with various diamond products for more than 25 years. The company then sells semifinished PCBN inserts to toolmakers and part manufacturers to finish via grinding. The inserts can then be PVD- or CVD-coated or left uncoated and protected from rusting by applying oil on the inserts.

Courtesy of IDS Cutting Tools

IDS Cutting Tools offers semifinished PCBN inserts in which PCBN tips are thermally shrunk fit into a P/M steel body that customers finish via grinding and coating for sale to end users or for in-house applications.

Courtesy of IDS Cutting Tools

When making semifinished PCBN inserts, IDS Cutting Tools pours P/M steel into a mold containing at least one PCBN tip until the mold is filled.

“When looking at the price on a per-edge basis, we’re looking to save toolmakers about 50 percent of their manufacturing costs and eliminate the investment that brazing requires,” Briggs said. He added that a large auto parts manufacturer, for example, found IDS’ inserts performed as well as conventional brazed inserts while providing comparable tool life.