Customer Background

Tungsten carbide-cobalt (WC-Co) alloys are widely used for cutting tools, mining bits, and drilling equipment due to their outstanding hardness and wear resistance. In this project, the customer used Brother Furnace’s vacuum graphite furnace to produce a batch of high-performance inserts with strict requirements for density, strength, and service life.

Customer Challenges

Carbon control issues: Traditional sintering methods often lead to unstable carbon content, resulting in defects.

Incomplete binder removal: Residual binder can cause porosity inside the product.

Temperature uniformity: Inconsistent heating during high-temperature sintering leads to batch-to-batch variations.

Our Solution

Brother Furnace provided a vacuum graphite furnace, which integrates debinding, sintering, and cooling in a single unit. This solution helped the customer overcome key production challenges:

Stable carbon balance: The graphite hot zone naturally helps maintain the correct carbon level, avoiding η-phase or free carbon.

Clean processing: Vacuum conditions ensure complete binder removal and produce a denser structure.

Uniform heating: The graphite chamber delivers a consistent temperature distribution, ensuring reliable batch results.

Fast cooling: High-pressure inert gas cooling shortens the cycle time and prevents grain growth.

Final Results

After adopting our vacuum graphite furnace, the customer’s WC-Co inserts achieved:

* Density above 99.5%;

* Stable microstructure without defects;

* Significantly improved tool life;

* Higher production efficiency with reduced unit cost.

Conclusion

With Brother Furnace’s vacuum graphite furnace, the customer successfully achieved high-quality sintering of tungsten carbide-cobalt alloys. This solution not only improved product performance but also ensured stable and cost-effective production. Contact us anytime to get professional vacuum furnace solutions