Frictec’s unique Friction Surfacing process allows special hard wearing alloys to be deposited directly at a knife’s cutting edge. The first step is to mill a recess at the edge of a tough substrate and then fill the recess using Friction Surfacing. After finishing processes, the result is a blade with a hard, wear resistant edge and a tough backing material. With the extremely strong bond that is formed between the coated deposit (called TMC45) and the substrate, there is no risk of delamination.

TMC45 provides significant performance advantages over conventional machine knives. A wide variety of other wear parts can also be manufactured to offer the same unique characteristics.

A key inherent benefit of our process is the near ideal microstructure developed in the deposited material, which consists of an ultra-fine martensitic matrix with fine carbides uniformly distributed throughout the structure.

The micrograph on the right shows how the material’s grain structure is broken down into smaller particles, which are more evenly distributed throughout the matrix.

Wear Resistance = Hardness + Carbides

Wear resistance is not dependent on the hardness of a steel alone. Although hardness is an important factor, the combination of both hardness and the enhanced carbide formation present in TMC45’s microstructure, is the key to improved initial sharpness and increased operating life.

Furthermore, due to the thickness of coating that can be deposited (typically 1.0 ­2.0 mm thick), re-grinding is also feasible depending on the application. This is a clear advantage over surface treatment processes such as Titanium Nitride, where regrinding is not an option.

Click here for further technical information on the Friction Surfacing process.