How would I make these tungsten carbide tools?

[BearTricks]

Hi.

Bit of a weird one. I do pottery in my spare time, which requires trimming tools like the ones below. The majority of these seem to be stainless but the good (expensive) ones are tungsten carbide and cost a fortune.

Most of these seem to be sold by individual makers rather than big companies and I’m wondering how they make them. I’d like some for myself and possibly to sell some locally. I thought it would be as easy as buying the blanks online, bending them to shape with a bit of heat and a jig and putting a handle on but after doing a bit of research it seems like it might not be doable with tungsten at home.

Is it likely they’re having these produced by a firm that does carbide tooling and attaching the handles at home? They seem to sell these in limited runs so I don’t think they’d be having the cutters made in big enough quantities to make it worth it but I might be wrong.

If anyone has any ideas on how this can be done I’d be interested in hearing.

 

[--Tom--]

You’ll struggle to bend tungsten carbide, it’s very brittle.

If they are just used on clay I’d have thought titanium would be the posh choice as it is both light, tough and corrosion proof


Edit to add:

With the help of Google I found what it looks like. To me it looks to be milled from solid then brazed.

No idea how you’d do it in a home workshop.

https://sawfish-endive-kgks.squares...g-tool-designed-by-hsin-chuen-lin-a5bmz-kxscw

 

[bushwhaker]

Spare pottery scraper

 

[BearTricks]

Cheers for the advice. Thats what I was thinking.

I was wondering how these potters were figuring out how to mill tungsten carbide or having it produced by tooling companies but it hadn’t even crossed my mind that they might be buying from China.

I do have a mate who might be able to produce something like this but I don’t think the volumes I’d be shifting would be worth their while.

 

[AES]

As already said, tungsten carbide is a real "devil" to form in the typical home workshop - personally I'd call it "not do-able" because it's generally VERY brittle (and I will/or have had a go at most things)!

IF you can find it (and afford it) Titanium CAN be bent up in the home workshop (I've done it with thin sheet). BUT you can only get it to bend to a bit less than a right angle before it suddenly cracks and splits. And I GUESS Titanium wire is much the same (though it MAY depend on the axact alloy, which I certainly don't know).

Titanium is used quite a lot in aero engines (it's where I got mine from - the scrap bin please note!) and it's formed into various shapes and in various sizes for gas turbines, but that is all done by specialist manufacturers (either the aero engine manufacturers themselves or specialist subcontractors). It also "can" be welded, but again, only by special processes AFAIK (e.g. vacuum electron beam). And I think brazing/hard soldering is NOT possible.

So again, I GUESS you're going to find it next to impossible.

The suggestion above above buying in from China is the only practical solution that I can see, sorry (but I'll be pleased to be proved wrong).

P.S. Update. There's a current thread running here about people making their own tungsten TURNING tools (not being a turner i didn't notice it before). Note however that the guys there are talking ONLY about adding "just" a tungsten cutting edge (I assume there're it's "only straight"?) to a "holder made from HSS or even MS. Probably worth a look?

 

[Ollie78]

I would have a look at the many different types of carbide tooling available and see if you can adapt it. Thats basically what they do with the turning tools with carbide inserts.

 

[J-G]

Tungsten Carbide is not a material in the same class as Titanium, Steel, Brass etc. It is 'Sintered' - ie. it starts as a powder and is compressed into a mould whilst heated.

Further work may be done on the resultant product in the way of grinding but not necessarily.

It certainly can't be 'bent' or 'forged' in any way.

 

[chaoticbob]

Cheers for the advice. Thats what I was thinking.

I was wondering how these potters were figuring out how to mill tungsten carbide or having it produced by tooling companies but it hadn’t even crossed my mind that they might be buying from China.

I do have a mate who might be able to produce something like this but I don’t think the volumes I’d be shifting would be worth their while.

Hi. Although I realise that your question has been answered (ie not practicable on a small scale) I wonder why there is a market for these tools. I sometimes make metal tools for a potter and the challenges are that clay is both abrasive and wet. So the tools wear quickly and corrode easily. Stainless answers the corrosion problem but seems to wear quickly. Carbon steel keeps a better edge but corrodes quickly unless you're very punctilious. Titanium answers the corrosion problem but is softer than either stainless or carbon steel. Tungsten carbide answers both challenges, but is extremely expensive and impossible on a small scale..
I gave up - more efficient to accept that the tools wear out and replace them cheaply.
I'd be interested to hear the rationale for using carbide though.
Bob.