Carbide Insert Recycling
Has your faithful tool been showing signs of ageing lately which is why you have been contemplating a carbide insert recycling? Stop before throwing away worn carbide inserts, you might be interested in a service that not only sharpens those inserts again for added use, but also ensures that the reclaimed inserts will perform at least as well as brand new ones, if not better. Welcome to the world of Carbide insert recycling.
Research in this sphere has revealed that most companies do throw away their worn inserts, without stopping to consider Carbide insert recycling. This can be termed a criminal wastage of resources since the insert’s usefulness has not been exhausted entirely. In fact, these can be sharpened again and can be used as many as three or four times before it is no longer usable. Carbide insert recycling is an aspect that most users of these inserts are unaware of.
Strangely enough, the concept of Carbide insert recycling is hardly a new idea, however the process has had a few definite drawbacks. The traditional Carbide insert recycling process has been a downsizing process which retains the original shape of the insert but grinds it to the next smaller standard size. The user of the insert must then make rather long drawn manipulations to the tool to be able to accommodate the smaller size of the insert, and would often be forced to resort to such means as shimming the insert, going to a different tool body, and so on.
After years of research on this matter of Carbide insert recycling, an innovative process of carrying out the same has been devised, that overcomes most of the shortcomings of the traditional process. This new process sharpens the worn insert without changing its inscribed circle also known as IC size or clamping its height. As a result, the sharpened insert can be installed in the tool as if it were a brand new insert, and no adjustments whatsoever are required because the overall size of the insert is not changed.
The process in fact, begins with analyzing the user’s particular application to modify cutting edge geometry of the carbide insert for optimum cutting performance, grinding and honing the insert, and then applying a coating which can be one of several proprietary coatings. Each of these carbide inserts that are reconditioned as part of the process, is used to represent one of the four grinding methods that the process employs. Worn out inserts are ground using one or more of four grinding patterns that can be used for virtually any carbide insert and the grinding of the worn insert is strictly confined to the cutting edges. For instance, on a square milling insert, only the top of the insert is ground on its outer edge avoiding the area where the insert is clamped, so that the reground insert fits the holder just like a new insert. By the end of these processes, Carbide insert recycling would be complete.
|