PCBN Tooling

The second hardest of the polycrystalline tool materials, PCBN has a much superior thermo-chemical stability to that of the diamond based material, and is therefore recommended for machining hard ferrous materials of between 45 and 60 HRC, where the chip softening produced by the cutting heat reduces the amount of cutting energy required and promotes chip removal.

This means that depending on the chip-removal energy required in hard-cutting operations, a major consideration is the coefficient of thermal conductivity of the PCBN material. This in turn is influenced by the CBN content, which is an important factor in determining the appropriate grade PCBN for the application.

High content PCBN tools (N.I.D. grade C20) are preferred for operations such as rough and intermittent cutting, while low content PCBN tools (N.I.D grade C10) are recommended for fine and finish cutting.

As well as making specialist tooling to order, such as end mills, slot drills, ball end cutters, N.I.D. also manufacture a wide range of standard ISO inserts. Click on the following link to check if your PCBN tipped ISO insert requirements can be supplied from our ISO Standards list