Thank you, Gentlemen.
If I could impose further, would you mind checking the following? I would appreciate any comments you cared to make.
Tom Walz
Advanced Carbide Grades for Woodworking
Technology in the woodworking industry is dominated by mechanical engineers and they have done incredible things.
What our industry has lacked is a full exploitation of advances in material sciences.
Tungsten carbide tipped saw blades for woodworking emerged commercially in the 1950’s and 1960’s. At that time the “C” grade designations were new. The “C” grade concept was developed by Buick and the US army in World War II to specify carbide by the appropriate use. The first saw blades were built with these “C” grades and they are still being used today. They are better made than they were fifty years ago but they are still fundamentally the same material.
Tungsten carbide research and new grade development is almost exclusively devoted to steel cutting because that is where the money is. In the past twenty five years there have been a couple carbide companies who have addressed the woodworking market with new grades but. In both cases this woodworking emphasis only lasted a couple years when they realized that their dollars were much better devoted in other areas.
To give some idea of the benefits possible with material science advances in the past forty or fifty years consider what has happened to automobiles.
Fifty years ago:
Tire ads promised long wear and that you would love the second 10,000 miles. Now good tires go up to 70,000 miles in stead of 20,000 miles.
Tires have come from natural rubber to polyester to steel belted radials. Pre polyester tires were good for about 15,000 miles and mid 60's bias ply polyester tires were good for about 30,000 miles. In the mid 1970's radial tires doubled the mileage again to the current 60,000 to 70,000 miles. In addition there was a great improvement handling and performance.
Fifty years ago you had to do a tune up and change points, spark plugs and maybe other ignition components, etc. every 10,000 to 20, 000 miles for vehicles in the 60's. Now plugs can go 100,000 miles and most cars today don’t even have points.
To make it simple, figure 100,000 miles at 60 mph and 1,000 rpm then you get spark plugs that survive a million explosions in a highly corrosive atmosphere. In actual use a spark plug survives high temperature, high pressure, corrosive atmosphere and extremely rapid compression – tension cycling several million times in 100,000 miles.
Mechanical fuel pumps would go maybe 70,000 miles and now electric fuel pumps go, well, indefinitely.
Fifty years ago you had to grease the suspension every 1000-1500 miles. Now you don’t grease it at all.
. .
Thomas J. Walz
Carbide Processors, Inc.
