At Ultra-Met Carbide Technologies, we manufacture and supply top-quality blanks for fabricators and toolmakers, including high-performance carbide solutions. Depending on your requirements, we offer a variety of standard grades, stocked blanks, preformed blanks, custom carbide tooling, and more. Read on to learn more about our carbide capabilities and the benefits of choosing Ultra-Met for your precision custom carbide needs.
About Custom Carbide Solutions
Carbide solutions are tungsten carbide components with superior hardness and resistance to wear. At Ultra-Met, we have the ability to custom mold these carbide materials into various sizes and shapes to meet our customers’ unique specifications.
We follow this comprehensive customization process to achieve custom designs for our customers.
Design and Engineering
The first step of the process is to determine the design, considering the necessary carbide grade, shape, size, and intended application.
Mold Development
Following the design and engineering stage, we create a custom mold through one of three mold development strategies: standard die, split cavity die, and multiple-out.
A standard die is a basic die with a single cavity, while a split cavity die consists of two halves to allow for more design flexibility. Multiple-out dies enable the fabrication of multiple carbide components simultaneously, ideal for high-volume projects.
Material Selection
Next, our metallurgists select the right carbide material grade for the end product based on certain key factors, such as toughness, hardness, and resistance to fracturing. Considering these aspects ensures the final product can meet your application’s requirements.
Molding and Pressing
After mixing the selected tungsten carbide powder with a binder like nickel or cobalt, we pour the mixture into the appropriate mold. Computer numerical control (CNC) presses then apply significant pressure to the material, forming the final shape.
Sintering
During sintering, we apply high levels of heat to the molded carbide to help solidify it and improve its properties, such as wear resistance and durability. Hot isostatic pressing (HIP) can enhance the carbide’s density even more, removing any remaining voids within the component.
Finishing and Quality Control
To complete the process, the molded component goes through stringent quality control measures, which help gauge the carbide’s surface finish, accuracy, and other properties. If needed, we could also use polishing, grinding, or other finishing processes.
Benefits of Precision Custom Carbide Tooling
Many applications benefit from custom carbide solutions over standard solutions. Some of these specific advantages include:
- Unparalleled Durability: One of the main benefits of tungsten carbide is its ability to hold up in harsh environments, minimizing wear and tear to increase your equipment’s longevity. In turn, you can benefit from reduced maintenance needs and downtime and minimize lost productivity.
- Improved Performance: Custom carbide components stay sharp and create cleaner cuts even for complex parts, leading to more efficient processes. This increased efficiency can help reduce operational costs.
- Increased Versatility: A wide range of applications can use custom carbide tools of many different shapes and sizes. Some industries that rely on these tools include oil and gas, metalworking, food processing, mining, and woodworking.
- Lower Overall Costs: The initial costs of custom carbide solutions may be higher than standard alternatives, but their longer service life and overall improved durability and efficiency can result in long-term cost reduction.
Our Custom Carbide Products & Services
Ultra-Met offers high-quality custom carbide solutions and services based on our customers’ requirements, including:
- Custom Carbide Blanks: Our experts can design and produce custom carbide blanks according to your specific shape and size requirements.
- Complex Design and Manufacturing: We provide advanced CNC multi-axis and pressing services to develop these detailed and complex shapes.
- Material Selection and Expertise: Our in-house metallurgists offer expertise in material selection so that you get the right carbide materials for your application based on factors like toughness, hardness, and fracture resistance.
- Standard Stock Blanks: If your application doesn’t require custom blanks, we also offer standard options from our inventory.
- Private Labeling: Our custom carbide products can be private-labeled for your needs.
- Design and Prototyping: If you need a carbide prototype, we’ll assist with design and development to ensure it functions how it should.
- Quality Control: We facilitate quality assurance through HIP sintering, sample analysis, and various material/dimensional certifications to provide the highest-quality solutions for our customers.
Custom-Molded Carbide Services from Ultra-Met
Seeking a custom carbide solution for your application? Turn to the experts at Ultra-Met Carbide Technologies. Contact us today to learn more about our custom-molded carbide services and other solutions.