The Invention of High Speed Steel and thereafter

As history of mankind has progressed so to has that of cutting tools, however only one problem remained to be faced. That problem was that there was no tool hard enough to machine iron. The solution to this came about in 1898 with the invention of high speed steel (HSS). Due to the introduction of high speed steel came a dramatic improvement in the machining of iron. In the 1920, a German scientist. Dr. Schroter, invented "cemented carbide" a new cutting tool material that was much harder than high-speed steel.

In 1926,a German company called Friedlich Krupp successfully merchandised cemented carbide and started selling these products under the name of "Wie diamant" (as hard as diamond).In 1928, General Electric (GE) of the United Stated marketed cemented carbide products under the name of "Carboloy." Around the same time in Japan. Toshibu. Sumitorno. Mitsubishi material. and other compunies began their own research & development with cemented carbide/high-speed steel products.

ln the last 80 years since the invention of cemented carbide various technologies have been developed, coating, ceramics. Cermet and polycrystalline compacts (sintered super-hardened compact), Recently, a technology of forming diamond crystal on the surface of cemented carbide hits also been invented, As new technologies are developed we have seen an increase in the qualitv or cutting tools. this in turn also leads to a drastic increase in the cutting speeds that can be used.