Recycle Your D*** Carbide!

One of my pet peeves is to walk into a shop and see, on each and every horizontal bench surface next to a machine, a handful or two (or three) of used, burnt, failed, worn and unidentified carbide inserts.

It’s like they are the nest of an invisible shop bird who builds nests everywhere in hope of raising a family. I never see any eggs in these nests, though, just plenty of carbide.
On my last trip to the West coast, I stopped in to visit the local Sandvik facility in Cypress, Calif.

Machining Applications Engineer Grant Hughson showed me some of the advanced work that they were doing for customers. (It involved making large chunks of titanium submit to the will of the engineers through some highly unusual milling pathways using some unique inserts. And they demonstrated an acoustic dampening system that attenuates vibration while in the cut. And a whole bunch of other cool, use-it-to-make-the-Death Star-kind of technology.) And he showed me the Sandvik Carbide Recycling Program. 

But the simple elegance and utility of the Sandvik Recycling Program hit my nerve. I hate seeing unidentified, partially used or completely used carbide inserts just lying around in a work area.

No good thing can happen with them in one’s workspace. So take Grant’s advice and get that used carbide collected, contained and recycled.
 

Originally posted on PMPA Speaking of Precision blog.