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Automotive Production Line Finishes with Single Crystal Diamond Tooling
01 May 2004
Following 12 years of developing products for the automotive industry, Chase Diamond Tools recently designed and supplied single crystal diamond (SCD) tooling for a particular production line where a fine surface finish was required. "This shows that industry is waking up to the possibilities of SCD technology", says Martin Dickens of Chase Diamond Tools.
Traditionally, automotive contractors use poly-crystalline diamond (PCD) tooling in the final machining stage followed by additional surface finishing operations. However, by changing over to SCD from PCD tooling in the final machining stage of nonferrous engine components, Chase Diamond's client achieved significant cost benefits, despite the fact that initial cost of SCD tooling is four times that of PCD.
Cost benefits are achieved over the long expected tool life. Depending on the application and use, a SCD tool that costs, say, £200 can be re-lapped when blunt at a cost of £25, up to 12 times.
Use of SCD tooling is increasing in many high precision applications in the automotive, medical and electronics sectors where mirror surface finishes, or tight tolerances are required.
www.chasediamond.com
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