Tungsten carbide drills are both elephant size and minuscule and have an unbelievably wide range or service. Smallest are those comparable in size to a human hair used to drill holes so small as to be invisible to the naked eye in tiny watch jewels.

 

Minute diamonds formerly not useful even in industry because they were to small to be soldered are now utilized through a bond of tungsten copper steel alloy. The effect is almost to double the working life of an industrial diamond used as a grinding tool. Second to the diamond in hardness and efficiency as a cutting tool is steel tipped with tungsten carbide. Although now used for only about 20% of all rotary tools, it works two to five times faster than an ordinary steel tool and retains its cutting edge up to 50 times longer.

 

A well-equipped dentist uses tungsten to tip his drill. Such a drill can rotate five times as fast as the former drill, needs less pressure, and is more comfortable for the patient.

 

Tungsten carbide drills have contributed greatly to our vast oil and gas industry, so important not only to our commerce, but to our national defense. The rich pools a mile or more beneath the earth's surface have been tapped largely because of the enormous savings and the elimination of the depth barrier by the use of drilling bits tipped with hard tungsten carbide. Tungsten is used for arc welding of stainless steel, fluid metals, food and pharmaceutical products.

 

Cemented tungsten carbide as a material for bearings is about five times more abrasion resistant than ordinary drill rod bearings.

 

The productive life of steel core rods has been increased 12 to 27 times by flame-plating, a method of applying tungsten carbide to metal parts. The deposit is from 0.0005 to 0.20inches thick, and the process can be used for making wear resistant parts of all types of steel, cast iron, aluminum, copper, brass, bronze, titanium and magnesium.