Guide to Tool Steel
When we select the most effective product for cutting tools used in CNC manufacturing, there is a sort of typical metal- tool steel. With various sorts of tool steels, which one is your choice? In this article, we’ll focus on the definition and also classification of tool steel, to learn more about the qualities as well as properties of each type.
What Is Tool Steel?
Tool steel is a unique sort of carbon steel as well as alloy steel that largely utilized for tooling functions, as a result of its distinct hardness, abrasion and also deformation resistance, and the capacity to hold a cutting side at raised temperature levels. Tool steels are widely utilized for reducing, pushing, squeezing out, and creating metals and various other materials.
What are the Various Kinds Of Tool Steel?
There are six groups of tool steels: water-hardening, cold-work, shock-resistant, high-speed, hot-work, and special purpose. Below we enter 4 groups of tool steels.
When it comes to the classification of tool steel, you can acknowledge the class via the capital letter.
| Letter | Type | Subcategory |
| W | Cold work tool steel | Water hardening |
| O | Cold work tool steel | Oil hardening |
| A | Cold work tool steel | Air hardening |
| D | Cold work tool steel | HCHC |
| S | Shock-resistant | |
| H1-H19 | Hot work | Chromium based |
| H20-H39 | Hot work | Tungsten based |
| H40-H59 | Hot work | Molybdenum based |
| M | High speed | Molybdenum based |
| T | High speed | Tungsten based |
| L | Special purpose | Low alloy |
| F | Special purpose | Carbon/Tungsten based |
Hot work tool steel
Hot work tool steel is mainly used for hot working such as drawing, forming, squeezing out, etc. In these procedures, steel is operated at regressive over its recrystallization temperature. This kind of device steel has excellent toughness, sturdiness, solidity, wear resistance at raised temperature levels. Typically they utilized from 0.35 to 0.65% of alloying elements. The hot job device steel can be split right into 3 types according to the principle permitting aspect made use of.
- Chromium type hot job tool steel: such as H10.
- Tungsten type hot job tool steel: such as H20.
- Molybdenum type hot job tool steel: such as H41.
Special purpose steel
This kind of tool steel is utilized for special purposes such as surface area finish when we require premium surface finishes.
- Type L (Low alloy type): such as L1, compatible with oil hardening tool steel.
- Kind F (Carbon tungsten type): such as F1.
Cold work tool steel
The chilly work tool steel is made use of for cold working of metals that are listed below its recrystallization temperature level, they have some good solidity and use resistance at reduced temperature level yet occasionally the steel can be used at heat, so at that temperature level, we can locate that they have fairly low hardness. Relying on the medium utilized for appeasing purposes, cool work device steels can be classified into 4 types as below.
- Water hardening tool steel: have to be water quenched, bad hardenability, excellent effect & shock resistance, wear-resistance and also affordable, utilized for blanking dies, threading dies, hammer, chisel, blade, carpentry tools, knives, etc., such as W1.
- Oil hardening tool steel: relatively much better hardenability, less distortion, as well as much less contraction throughout warm treatment, used for creating dies, reducing devices, determines, and so on, such as O2.
- Air hardening tool steel: high hardenability, less distortion, excellent wear resistance and deepness of hardening, used for string rolling, complex die forms and also punches, such as A2.
- HCHC (high carbon high chromium) tool steel: extremely high hardenability, excellent solidity and also use resistance, used for developing dies, thread rolling dies, determines, and also cutting tools, such as D2. This sort of tool is either oil quenched or air relieved.
High-speed tool steel
High-speed tool steels are utilized for the procedure in which the temperature level can increase up to 550 ℃ ， it will certainly need some high hardness, this type of steel obtains high solidity approximately some raised temperature level. These steels are commonly used for cutting steels at broadband, such as in CNC machining, lathe machines will use the cutting device that is made of high-speed steel. High-speed device steel is capable of taking compressive load and tensile load. The broadband tool steel can be classified right into 2 types based upon its principle enabling element majorly.
- Tungsten high-speed steel: such as T1.
- Molybdenum high-speed steel: such as M2.
