What is Electro Arc’s Carbide Impregnator?

Electro Arc introduced the Carbide Impregnator in June of 1964. This bench-type carbide impregnator hardens wear surfaces of tools. You can use this process to extend tool life and reduce downtime and maintenance. Cratering, galling and chip abrasion are substantially reduced. You will find this plug-in-hand tool easy to use. A carbide tip is passed over the wear surfaces or land of the tool. The vibrating tip fuses tungsten carbide by electrical spark discharge into the metal surface. The carbide deposit adds hardness and wear resistance to the surface metal without altering toughness and other mechanical characteristics.

Examples from case studies show increased life of tools:

*Gear cutters – 700%
*End Mills – 800%
*Saws – 600%
*Piercing punches – 300%

How the Carbide Impregnator Works:

The carbide impregnator deposits tungsten carbide to a depth of .0005 to.001 in the metal and builds up to .0003 tolerance regardless of the length of operation. You can pass the impregnating tip over the surface many times until you are satisfied with the desired deposit. The impregnation process uses a special grade of carbide suitable for impregnation.

Electro Arc’s Carbide impregnator operates on a 120 volt, 60 cycle current. The cabinet is made with16 gauge reinforced steel with steel side handles for easier handling. A convenient expanded metal basket is used to store the plug-in hand tool and cord. The tool’s net weight is 35 pounds.

Applying the Principles of Carbide Impregnation

You are probably wondering what kind of applications the carbide impregnator has. We published an engineering bulletin in the 60s with a case study “Applying the Principles of Carbide Impregnation to Circular Saws” about Havey Aluminum Company’s application of the Carbide Impregnator. A prime extruder of titanium and aluminum in the United States, Harvy aluminum had a sizable investment in 36″ diameter circular saws for cutting billets. Numerous studies and reports for cutting manufacturing costs and determining shop procedures revealed that no saws of any kind would stay “on the lin” for more than 12 hours, and it was best to stop to change at six and three-quarter hours because of a variety of negative factors which thereafter started to develop.

Harvey Aluminum gave Electro Arc a 16″ circular saw with 80 teeth to carbide impregnate, the theoretically critical crescent of about 1/64 of a square inch on each side of the teeth. The carbide impregnation of the 16″ saw took about two hours. Harvey Aluminum then put the saw into operation and inspected it at the end of 80 hours of continuous operation. They found there was an increase of over 600 percent over any other saw used before.

On the strength of these results, Harvey Aluminum immediately purchased an Electro Arc Carbide Impregnator so that they could continue to receive this extraordinary increase in all of their saw operation. In addition to this, after receiving the machine they began to experiment in other areas of their plant operations. The Extrusion Department impregnated four sets of dies and reported an increase of over 1000 percent. Further use proved that the slitting saw operation was further improved by impregnating the entire tooth rather than just the crescent.

This application at Harvey Aluminum is an excellent sample of what users of the Electro Arc Carbide Impregnator experience when they have the chance to couple the impregnator with their own knowledge against wear-life problems.