Home >> Solid CBN insert, solid pcbn turning inserts

solid CBN inserts, solid pcbn turning inserts

The Basics of Solid cbn Inserts That You Can Benefit From Starting Today!

Industry acceptance of today’s hard powder metals, hardened steels, bimetals and heat resistant super alloys is becoming widespread. These materials are nearly indestructible and the challenge at hand is how to machine them at a sensible price per part.

Fortunately, exciting technological advances by cutting tool suppliers have led to the manufacture of advanced inserts for milling and hard turning. Cubic boron nitride (cbn) inserts play a huge role in these advances. First introduced in the 1980’s, these hard turning inserts have distinctive coatings and various geometric designs that can counter tremendous mechanical shock and heat while withstanding abrasion. cbn has a hardness value of 4500 which enables it to machine hard materials at high speeds. It is the hardest known material in the world only second to the diamond. Nonetheless, using such advanced inserts requires some how-to knowledge that we can provide you as your tool supplier.

Firstly HBN powder is transformed to CBN powder, after twice processing under high temperature and pressure with certain bond, CBN powder will transform to PCBN, and finally obtain the finished solid cbn inserts, as solid cbn inserts are completely made by purely out of cubic boron nitride, so they have the best heat absorption capacity and can work at highest temperatures, besides the features of chemical inertness to ferrous metals, they are used for turning atuomobile brake disk, grey cast iron, nodular cast iron, ductile cast iron, hardened steel etc. from continuous to light interrupted machining, light to medium interrupted machining and heavy interrupted machining.

Making Inserts Cost Effective

The cost of using solid cbn inserts is around 5 to 6 percent of total machining costs. That may seem expensive when you consider cost only. However, when you consider the entire application, cbn inserts pay for themselves in terms of added good parts per shift and shorter cycle times. Less expensive inserts will cost time and labor in replacing and indexing them more frequently in addition to product production. There is always a trade-off so it pays to have a good understanding of insert performance, cycle time and production throughput.

Alternatively, keep in mind that the cost of cbn inserts can be up to ten times that of carbide. Knowing when to use cbn inserts for the right application requires knowledge of machining economics. Using cbn inserts on the wrong applications can be just as detrimental to costs in terms of flawed part quality and tool life.    

There are many applications within these broad categories for cbn inserts. Some applications are cylinder boring in automotive engine blocks. cbn turning inserts are used for this application. Using cbn turning inserts in cylinder boring has been shown to increase output up to 4,000 pieces.   

Brake disc machining uses cbn tooling inserts that can increase the tool life to over 2,000 brake discs. Transmission gears manufacturing uses cbn machining inserts that are used in the soft turning and gear milling processes. They are also used in the finish-turning hardened transmission components.

cbn inserts for cast iron are used in cast iron turning. Cast iron has superior durability and is used in machine tools and agricultural machinery parts. cbn inserts for cast iron have an overwhelmingly high wear resistance and fracture resistance and achieves high speed and high efficiency turning for cast iron.

cbn inserts are sold individually in various sizes and diameters. They can also be sold as part of a milling kit. Milling kits typically come with several different cbn inserts and a cutting tool. We can help you choose the right kit and insert geometry for your cutting job.

Why Use cbn Inserts for turning?

Pressure from the global metal cutting market has forced accelerated growth in the production of cbn cutting tools that use very hard materials. This boils down to higher cutting speeds and longer tool life. Cubic boron nitride (cbn) inserts are used for iron-based alloys (e.g., cast irons, hard steels, iron-based composites). cbn is thermally durable up to around 1200 ºC (2192 ºF) and has high a strong defiance to chemical attack as well. Therefore, you face no problems when machining hard ferrous metals and performance is substantially better than conventional tool material such as carbides and ceramics. This also provides technical and economic benefits to the overall machining process, that is why solid cbn inserts are so popular.