What are carbide tips?

Many cutting tools are made of materials like steel but have carbide tips, which stay sharper longer. Learn more about carbide tips in this podcast from HowStuffWorks.com.

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Episode Transcript

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(00:31):
Hi'm Marshall Brain with today's question, what are carbide tips?
When you buy a saw blade or a drill bit,
it'll often say carbide tipped. Carbide or more specifically tungsten.
Carbide is a very common material on any sort of
cutting tool. For example, sab blades, lave bits, drill bits,

(00:53):
router bits, and dental drilling tips are usually made out
of carbide. Carbide is so popular in these sorts of
tools because it stays sharper longer than most other materials. Additionally,
some ballpoint pens use carbide balls because it helps the
pen to last longer. With something like a carbide tip,
sob blade, the main body of the blade is made

(01:15):
of steel. The small tips of carbide are brazed onto
that steel body. A good carbide tip might hold an
edge ten to twenty times longer than a steel tip.
Carbide tips do get dull. Eventually you sharpen them using
the same techniques you would use to sharpen steel, but
because they are so hard, you use a different abrasive.

(01:38):
Something coated in diamond or a carbide abrasive wheel is common.
If you've read how diamonds work, you know that diamond
or pure crystalline carbon is the hardest material there is.
Moistenite or silicon carbide is very close. Tungsten carbide and
titanium carbide are both made of the metal combined with

(01:59):
car urban, and they are also very hard. Tools aren't
made entirely of carbide, partly because it would be very expensive,
but also because the tool would be very brittle. Steel
is actually a better material for the body of the
tool because it's tougher and it's less likely to crack
or shatter. And you do you have any ideas or

(02:21):
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