LMT Fette coating breakthrough withstands 1,100°C

The coating offers a 200°C higher working temperature when compared to existing aluminium-nitride tool coatings that typically handle temperatures up to 850°C. The new coating prevents surface cracking when cutting without coolant and enables the working life of the tool to be increased by at least 50 per cent, while also supporting higher machining rates. The Fette Nanosphere Red coating is a nano-composite multi-layer coating of titanium, aluminium and nitrogen (TiAlSiN) that also contains silicon. It is just three microns in depth, with a super-hardness value of 4,000 HV and able to withstand a cutting temperature of up to 1,100°C. This allows hardened steels between 63 and 68 HRC to be machined at up to 100 m/min and is available on end mills from the LMT range between 1 mm and 20 mm diameter. Worn tools can also be reground and re-coated by LMT to 'as new' specification. A recent rough milling trial without coolant on 58-59 HRC steel using a 10 mm diameter LMT MultiEdge 4Feed HSC cutter with Nanosphere Red coating enabled the in-cut life of the tool to be increased from 25 to 65 minutes against the incumbent tooling supplier. The LMT coated cutter was run at 119 m/min at a feed rate per tooth of 0.2 mm/min with a 3 mm depth of cut.