Blades are made of the world's hardest materials. Without blades, the world of metal cutting would be very different. The main components of cemented carbide inserts are tungsten carbide and cobalt with different proportions. The primary form of the material is powder. In containers weighing about 560kg, the ingredients are well matched and will be used to produce different powders. In the workshop, the dry material is mixed with a mixture of ethanol and water to form a thick, acid like gray paste. When the slurry is dried, the sample is sent to the laboratory for quality testing. These powders consist of many particles of 20-200 m in diameter, very tiny (a hair diameter is 50-60 m).

The powders are packed in a volumetric 100kg barrel and delivered to a stamping machine for making carbide inserts. The operator puts tungsten carbide dies (it is used for stamping different blades) into the machine tool and enters the order number into the computer, filling the mold cavity with the powder according to the order information. The pressure of each blade is as high as 12 tons. The machine tool will weigh each blade and the operator will observe and control it. At this stage, the blade is very fragile and easily ruptured.

The stamped blade needs to be heated to harden it. The job is done by a sintering furnace, which can handle thousands of blades at one time. The pressed blade powder is heated to about 1500 DEG C in the course of up to 13h and is melted into hard alloy. The shrinkage ratio in sintering process is about 50%, so the specification of carbide blade is only half of that before sintering.

Once again, in the laboratory, the top and bottom of the blade will be grinded to the required thickness. Because cemented carbide is very hard, it is necessary to grind it with industrial diamond.

When carbide blade reaches the required thickness, further grinding is carried out to obtain accurate geometry and size. The Kimmer factory staff by using 6 axis grinding plate to meet the stringent tolerance requirements.

After grinding, the carbide blades will be cleaned and coated. To avoid any grease or dust, gloves must be worn when handling the blade at this stage. The blade is placed on the fixture of the turntable and then fed to a lower pressure coating furnace. After coating, the blade shows different colors.

At this point, the blade has been produced, the staff will use the microscope for each batch of products sampling, to ensure that the quality meets the requirements. Before packing, the staff will check again one by one blade, and check the drawings and batch number, and then use the laser marker in carbide blades on the right material, the grey box blade into the label, you can put the blade delivery to the customer.

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