There are many kinds of metal bonds applied in diamond tools, for example, the cemented carbide bond whose skeleton is tungsten carbide, and Fe-based bond whose composition is mainly Fe and Ni. But the most widely used metal bond is bronze.
The bond material used in metal-bonded diamond tools can be Cu-based alloy, Co-Ni alloy, Fe-based alloy and carbide-based alloy. Bronze bond material is a kind of Cu-based alloy, and is widely used in metal-bonded diamond tools’ manufacture.
In diamond tools’ manufacture, the hot press method has below advantages:
Cold-pressed diamond tools are much cheaper than hot-pressed diamond tools. They are still widely used in many applications. The cold press production method has some advantages:
Metal bonds are widely used in diamond grinding wheels‘ manufacture. Among these metal bonds, Cu-Sn alloy is the mainly adopted bond. There are 3 modes in the metal-bonded diamond grinding wheels’ making.
Diamond grinding has many benefits. It is fast, low-noise and low-cost. It is very popular in the construction and home improvement industry. Diamond cup wheels are the diamond grinding tool which is often used to grind concrete, stone and masonry materials.
When resin is used in diamond tools as the bond material, some approaches should be adopted to make it have below features:
The valid working parts of metal-bonded diamond tools (e.g., the teeth of the common diamond blades) are normally called diamond segments, which are the sintered mixture of diamond grains and metal bond materials. Generally, diamond segments are made via the procedures of mixing diamond grains with bond materials, hot pressing and sintering, and arc grinding. They can be arc-shaped or rectangular.
Normally, diamonds (synthetic or natural) for industrial uses are small-size grains, and are difficult to be directly used as tools. They are usually fixed on the valid working parts of a tool via some kinds of bond materials or by some other special means to form a kind of tool, which has a certain shape, strength and uses. These tools are normally called diamond tools.
In the production of diamond segments, diamond grinding blocks, small diamond blades and diamond grinding wheels, one method is to first cold press them into their required profiles and then put them into a kiln for sintering. Another method is to directly sinter them under a certain pressure.