An interesting Fabricating & Metalworking cover story this month proffers the physics and evolution behind tool coatings. Here we focus on just how hot cutting-tool coatings are…literally.

Since their introduction to industry in the 1970s, a Fabricating & Metalworking article this month begins, “coatings have steadily emerged to become a routine part of the cutting-tool equation.”

Indeed, coatings have become an indispensable part of most cutting-tool grades. Cutting-tool coatings improve wear resistance, increase tool life, broaden a given grade’s application range and enable higher-speed use. In improving performance, coatings help cutting-tool manufacturers respond to changing work-piece materials and process requirements.

Most coatings are applied using one of two methods: chemical vapor deposition (CVD) and physical vapor deposition (PVD).

CVD was used to produce the first cutting-tool coatings in the late 1960s and early ’70s. In the CVD process, the tools are heated in a sealed reactor up to 1000