Choosing cutter grades

TCT
Tungsten Carbide Tipped Cutters

This type of cutter has Tungsten Carbide tips brazed onto a steel body and designed to cut most abrasive materials. With careful handling they will outlast HSS grade cutters by many times under normal conditions. Small diameter cutters have a solid carbide insert.

Applications.
Cutting, routing and profiling natural timbers, plywood, MDF, chipboard and abrasive plastics such as solid laminate, GRP and Corian®.

STC
Solid Tungsten Carbide Cutters

These are turned, milled and ground from a solid piece of Tungsten Carbide and provide the greatest durability when under stree load conditions. They also offer better plunge cutting than TCT tools and many more re-sharpenings can be obtained from STC tools.

STC cutters are manufactured from a harder grade of Tungsten Carbide.

Applications.
Similar to TCT grade cutters.

HSS
High Speed Steel Cutters

These are either made from a single piece of High Speed Steel similar to STC cutters or High Speed Steel tips brazed onto a steel body like TCT cutters. High Speed Steel cutters can be ground to a very sharp edge
but are generally only suitable for non-abrasive materials but will give a superior finish in soft timbers. HSS cutters are usually less expensive than TCT grades but are more suitable in certain applications.

HSSE
Super High Speed Steel Cutters

This is a specially developed grade of High Speed Steel and is mainly used in specialized applications like the window industry for machining aluminium and uPVC.

PCD
Polycrystalline Diamond Tipped Cutters

Polycrystalline Diamond Tipped cutters have PCD tips brazed onto a steel or Tungsten Carbide body.

PCD is polycrystalline diamond, manufactured by sintering together carefully selected diamond particles at a very high temperature and pressure in the presence of a solvent/catalyst metal.

The result is an extremely tough inter grown mass of randomly orientated diamond crystals bonded to a tungsten carbide substrate. PCD, therefore, can be regarded as a composite material which combines the hardness, abrasion resistance and high thermal conductivity of diamond with the toughness of tungsten carbide.

Correctly applied, PCD tooling replaces existing cutting tool materials such as HSS or tungsten carbide. Tool costs per component are reduced through extended tool life and minimal downtime.

PCD cutters will outlast TCT cutters many times over and are designed for larger scale production using CNC machinery.

Applications.
Any non-ferrous materials including Carbon Fibre, Metal Matrix Composites (MMC), Aluminium, GRP, Corian®, MDF, HDF, chipboards, hard natural timbers and many others.

PCD tooling has also many other applications in the engineering sector and can be used on a variety of materials such as:

 Aluminium and its alloys
 Copper and its alloys
 Precious steels
 Plastic
 Graphites and graphite composites
 Green ceramics and carbides
 Composite materials
 Carbon Fibre
 Fibreglass

By using the correct grade of PCD, an excellent surface finish and abrasion resistance can be acheived on otherwise difficult to machine materials.

Prima uses SYNDITE PCD, from Element 6. After leaving the sintering press the SYNDITE round blanks (or discs) are diamond ground to the required finishes and these discs can be further cut into a variety of shapes and sizes, for use on multi-tipped rotary tools, such as routers and circular saws.

SYNDITE is PCD tool material, manufactured in discs of up to 74 mm maximum diameter, which makes it ideal for those tools which require a long, continuous cutting edge.

SYNDITE is available in standard grades - 002, 010, 025, 302 (equivalent to 2, 10, 25 and 30-2 microns average diamond grain size).

We supply a complete range of PCD woodworking tools to cater for every kind of application. Whatever the material and whatever you want to do with it we can provide a PCD tool to do it for you.

Hogging units, scoring blades, groovers, adjustable cutters, profile cutters, trimming blades, saw blades, straight and profile routers. The list is endless.

In the majority of cases, we manufacture to customers specified orders. All we need to know is what the tool is intended to produce and its operating conditions.

We manufacture certain types of standard off the shelf items but we mainly produce special tools because the requirements of each customer are very different from another.

In this way, we can guarantee that the tools you receive are ideal for your own particular circumstances, and that the performance you obtain cannot be bettered.