cutting carbide on a tile saw

Not good...prostitute yourself to someone with a wire EDM. I've never had great luck with cutting or grinding large amounts of carbide. It seems to me that it changes the structure of the carbide too much. Let me know the details and I will see if my bud can do it for you. He can coat it for you at the same time.

FWIW, permanently mounted carbide inserts are usu. silver brazed in place. I have replaced a few using 45% silver solder. It works quite well.

Bob Swinney

Here is an idea you might try (I haven't the time right now....too much paying work): Mount the diamond wheel on a spindle with speed control and slow it way down to, say, 1/10 the normal surface speed of

Using water as coolant and lubricant, use a cheap diamond wheel and scrap carbide brazed toolbit to "suck it and see". I suspect this may work sufficiently well for use in the home workshop.

The key is to keep the diamond/iron interface temperature low enough so that absorption of the diamond by the iron is slow enough to make it acceptable for non-commercial use. 4" dia. diamond cut-off wheels are quite cheap now so that some wastage is acceptable.

Experiment a little with wheel speed and see what happens. Of course if one of the readers of this forum has already tried this please share your knowledge with the great unwashed!

Wolfgang

You will have to grind the edge after the EDM or it will leave microcracks in the edge that leads to premature failure. This info came from a Kennametal engineer when we were looking into having some special inserts made.

John

Wes,

The problem you're likely to encounter is the center of the diamond wheel, which is often nothing more than a narrow band of steel that has diamond affixed to both sides. It won't cut in the center, and won't break down adequately, so the saw will float on that portion as it rubs on the carbide. It's not much of an issue when you're sawing rock products because they wear it away, much like a grinding wheel. Otherwise, as long as the diamond wheel is run with adequate coolant, I see no reason why it wouldn't work, and at rated speed. Avoid grinding on steel, regardless of speed. It's soft and tends to pull diamond from the matrix.

Harold

Just an idea: in addition to the saw, you can also get diamond impregnated grinding wheels for angle grinders. Might be useful for hogging out the carbide prior to finish grinding on a T&C grinder.

Well Harold, I got a chance to try it on the tile saw. There isn't very much diamond in the center as you stated. So much for that idea, it didn't work.

Thanks, Wes