Crobalt Tool Alloy

Sorry to be a pedant, but Kirksite is one of the family of Zamak alloys which consist mostly of zinc.

Rod

Is Crobalt hard to sharpen though?

Edited By Vic on 11/10/2015 09:59:13

No it can be ground and polished with the same gear as HSS.

It probably has the same characteristics as stellite. If heated and cooled quickly it will crack. Even dunking it in water while grinding a tool could have the same effect.

There is another similar alloy as well Tantung G.

Note the don't quench comment here. I understand they are happy to sell direct.

**LINK**

The root source of Tantung has been obscured by people searching for it. They are all stellites really. There is a bit of a run down here. There have been numerous grades of stellite in the past.

**LINK**

For home use I would suspect that speed feed and power may be a limitation as it's probably at it's best when the cutting edge is red hot which would help prevent chipping.

John

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There's a video of it in use here - the "noise" was down to not tightening the chuck fully.

**LINK**

John

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John McNamara:

Needless to say, I am of the same mind.

Roderick Jenkins:

I have no doubt that (like me) Bucky would be glad to be corrected on a point of fact. The book I mentioned is a somewhat "popular" exposition of his work co-authored by a friend and admirer and it looks as though whoever wrote the text concerned took his eye off the (Bucky) ball; thanks to you for spotting this.

One of RBF's preoccupations was the use of the world's resources and I found the idea that the US had a bigger tin "mine" above ground than Malaya, etc had below it to be a striking paradox. The discusson about Crobalt makes me wonder how far alloying elements are re-cycled; what happens to those short ends of HSS, etc that are too short for use?