Tungsten: A different but both hard working for making Alloy and Carbide

Tungsten: A different but both hard working for making Alloy and Carbide

It’s really a hard work of making tungsten carbide and alloy. And it is harder making tungsten carbide than tungsten alloy, according to my almost 2o years experiences of manufacturing tungsten and selling it worldwide.

The reason maybe 1) the different raw materials tungsten powder vs tungsten carbide powder
The different of the raw materials: the major raw materials of tungsten carbide sintered products is always tungsten carbide powder, which is made from carbonized tungsten powder, it always named tungsten carbide powder(TCP); but the tungsten alloy must bu make from(of) tungsten powder and the others of powder such as Nickel, Ferro, Molybdenum, Copper etc.

The another major different maybe the binder, in the most situation, tungsten carbide mixed powder( sometime we call this type powder which was ball milled and fix with binder was ready to press powder) , tungsten carbide always use cobalt as binder, sometime may use nikle; but the tungsten alloy products always use Ferro, Nickle and Copper as metal binder.

Of course, before the press, for the sake of getting a specific dimensions, the binder is most important for the processing. In most Chinese workshop, the binder always use rubber, candle, and alcohols.

As a result of different raw materials, tungsten carbide and alloy have a big different physical properties, tungsten carbide is the most hardest metals, and the tungsten alloy is the most dense metal as gold.

(To be continued)