01-16-2018, 01:30 PM
I'm unfamiliar with the notion that carbides do the cutting. It is fairly well recognized that a fine knife or other cutting tool can be made of steels with no or very few carbides in the hardened condition, such as 5160, 1084, 1075, 15N20, etc. Is this more in reference to carbide tipped cutting bits? The topic is in Verhoeven's book. It's in the section on austenization. I think he dedicates a full chapter to that topic. This chapter again points to the value of the phase diagrams as a starting point. I keep mentioning that, as I feel I emphasized their limitations more than I should have.