Effective now, the bar for milling stainless steels must be raised.
Added: (Tue Oct 25 2022)
Pressbox (Press Release) -
New in the H&V product range is the EXM1 series for stainless steel. The special challenges of machining stainless steels such as V2A, V4A and duplex have given the Research and Development department in the Bavarian town of Aßling no peace.
It is generally known that stainless steel places special demands on the milling tools. These are, on the one hand, the structures that react differently to machining: ferritic, martensitic, austenitic, austenitic-ferritic (duplex) and, on the other hand, the alloy components such as nickel, manganese, tungsten, or titanium, which demand special skills particularly from the milling cutters. Stainless steel also tends to clog the cutting edges and hardens unpredictably when subjected to thermal stress, to name just a few of the difficulties of machining stainless steel.
What improvements have been achieved here?
AlphaNox Navy X: A new level of coating
It was a matter of developing a new generation of milling cutters from scratch. The basis is a special ultra-fine grain substrate that combines fracture toughness with the necessary hardness. In addition, there is the new nano-structured multi-layer coating "AlphaNox Navy X", or ANNX for short. At 3000 to 3200 HV, the 3 - 4 μm thick layer is not only hard, but also exceptionally wear resistant.
When milling stainless steels, there is an immense pressure on the cutting edges. The multi-layer structure of the ANNX coating achieves high elasticity and reduces the internal stress of the layer, which causes the layer to degrade very evenly and effectively prevents layer spalling and breakouts.
Another feature of the EXM1 series is the "Finishing X technique", which produces particularly smooth surfaces, improving homogeneous wear and therefore wear resistance and chip disposal even further.
What are the advantages for the user?
The key to economic machining of stainless steels is the tool life of the milling cutters. Especially here, the EXM1 series sets new standards, because the tool life has more than doubled in many cases compared to the milling cutters previously available on the market. Therefore, the main advantage is that the milling cutters need to be replaced less frequently, which significantly speeds up the machining of workpieces made of stainless steel.
But not only concerning the tool life success was achieved, also the surface quality of the machined workpieces could be significantly improved in different field tests. As a positive side effect, the low noise level during milling was praised by companies that had already received the first milling cutters for test purposes.
The EXM1 series includes the types of end mill cutters (Performmaker), roughing cutters (Slotmaker), trochoidal cutters (Chipmaker), full radius cutters (Rowmaker) and finishing cutters (Mirrormaker).