What follows are the definitions we use. I am sure there are others equally valid.
Solid tooling.- screwdriver
Insert tooling – screw driver bit inserted into handle.
Solid tooling - steel saw blade
Brazed or tipped tooling – carbide tipped saw blade.
Machining – may or may not use monoblck tooling.
Typically whatever you use in machining (milling, turning, etc.) is a tool inserted into a chuck fastened to a spindle.
From here on I am going to assume that we are only talking about what is held by the chuck.
3 choices as I see it.
1. Solid (monoblock) tooling
A solid steel drill bit
A solid ceramic drill bit
2. Holders with inserts – mechanically held
A drill bit with mechanical clamping to hold carbide, cermet or ceramic inserts in place.
3. Holders with inserts – brazed on
A drill bit with a piece of carbide, cermet or ceramic brazed into place.
A big part of the difference in use is whether it is outside cutting (milling, turning) or inside cutting (drilling, sawing).
A good cutting tip holds an edge a long time, is wear and corrosion resistant and has a high lubricity so it slips through the cut without bonding. However these materials tend to fracture more readily than softer materials.
A good solution has been a steel holder with a hard tip. Carbide tipped saws, for example.
Solid and brazed tools are the most stable. Inserted tools, where a piece of hard material is mechanically held, are very easy to change when a tip becomes worn. Look up “High Speed Machining”. It has been a bit but at one time there was lot of discussion on this.
Because you need mechanical clamping it is hard to use inserted tooling in small inside cuts such as thin kerf saw blades. The really tiny holes in circuit boards are done with solid carbide drills.
Solid tools typically have to be ground down to resharpen them which changes the dimensions.
With brazed tools you use a little heat, take the worn tip off and put a new tip on and then grind it. Inserted bits typically do not need grinding.
Brazed tools have been limited to carbide because other materials were not brazeable until recently. See
for brazing cermet and ceramics.
Tom
