Tool Steel

Tool Steels General Properties & Applications :

Tool steels are high-quality, carbon and alloy steels that are commonly used to make cutters, reamers, bits etc used for machining metals, plastics, and wood. They are usually melted in furnaces and processed to give them properties required for shaping other metals into useful components. They are ingot-cast wrought products capable of withstanding high temperatures and heavy loads. Tool steels normally contain carbide formers like chromium, vanadium, molybdenum and tungsten in different combinations and cobalt or nickel for enhancing performance at high temperatures.

Tool Steels can be classified into :

• High Speed Steels
• Hot-Work Steels
• Cold-Work Steels

Applications of Tool Steels :

• Forming, stamping, cutting and shearing of plastics and metals
• Extrusion of plastic sections e.g vinyl window frames and pipes
• Stamping of computer parts from metal sheets
• Slitting of steel coils into strips
• Dies for compacting of powder metal into forms such as gears.