On Mon, 23 Jan 2006 23:08:20 -0500, "Ed Huntress"
wrote:

"BottleBob" wrote in message
...
Ed Huntress wrote:

"BottleBob" wrote in message

Ed:

A metal-matrix-composite it may very well be. I've recently seen
tungsten carbide tooling called "hardmetal" quite frequently.

Hardmetal is something else. It's the nickname for a tungsten alloy used
mostly for long, skinny boring bars and such. It is not a cutting-tool
material; it's used for various kinds of toolholders. And it's not a
carbide, oxide, nitride, or other ceramic. It's metal.

Like sintered tungsten carbide (the composite material), its Young's
Modulus
is 'way up there, much greater than that of steel. So it makes a stiff
boring bar. I don't remember its other properties for sure but I think
it is
more self-damping than tungsten carbide, which is better for preventing
vibration in long bars.

There have been sintered tungsten carbide boring bars, too.

Ed:

The term hardmetal seems to have a pretty wide use.

snip

I think these guys have been taking lessons from used billet-aluminum
salesmen. g

Bob, I covered tooling as an editor and copywriter for 30 years, and had
advertising/publicity clients that included Adamas Carbide (remember them?),
Hertle GmbH (remember them? g), and Iscar. In all that time, the
professionals in the field never, to my recollection, used the term
"hardmetal" to refer to a carbide product in my presence.

Believe what you want, but we all know how terms get corrupted by the sales
and marketing types. Hardmetal is tungsten alloy. "Carbide" refers to
sintered metal-matrix ceramic composite. If you Google around you probably
can find 100 or maybe 1000 misuses of the term by the come-latelies and by
foreign-based companies who have only a vague knowledge of our
terminologies.

So, enjoy yourself. I offered some information based on a lot of years in
that particular field. Take it or leave it as you wish.

Words probably have BB confused again.
"Hardmetal" & "hard metal" probably sound exactly the
same to him VBG.

BTW, Matweb.com has no listing for"hardmetal" nor does the US
trademark office. And clearly it would not be a patent matter.
Google searches found nothing interesting either shrug.
--
Cliff