Tool Steel – The All-Around FAQ Guide

Over the years, the demand for tool steels has increased. As a matter of fact, steel and metalworking companies aren’t the only industries asking for it. Hardware stores, retailers, distributors, and other businesses are looking for it too!

So, if you own a business and you’re looking for the best and the most reliable tool steel manufacturer, you’re just in the right page!

Today, we’ll give you the best and the most informative details about what tool steels are. In addition to that, as a bonus, we’ll also give you aid and assistance in choosing the tool steel supplier to work with!

What is Tool Steel and What is it Used For?

While they might seem as a single material, it’s a group of high quality carbon and alloy steels.

Example of what tool steel is

More often than not, tool steels are made out of elements that form carbide, which include:

• Chromium
• Molybdenum
• Tungsten
• Vanadium

Sometimes, they’re also mixed and combined with nickel, cobalt, and carbon for performance enhancement and improvement.

NOTE: Different tool steel manufacturers use these elements and compounds differently. Therefore, the levels and the percentages of these substances greatly differ.

What is the Toughest Tool Steel?

Should you be curious about what the toughest tool steel is, it is, of course, none other than tungsten.

Tungsten carbide, considered as the toughest tool steel

When creating tool steels using tungsten, you can expect this 1,510 megapascal-capable metal to be the hardest and the roughest.

Apart from this, tungsten is also:

• The metal that has the highest melting point
• A metal with a high alloy-strength scale

The only downside of the “toughest” possible tool steel would be its brittleness. Because it’s extremely hard and tough, it can go brittle, meaning, it can easily break when used under high levels of pressure.

What are the Different Grades of Tool Steel?

Akin to other types of materials, tool steels also have classifications, and, they’re usually known and distinguished as “grades.”

Lined up varying grades of tool steel

Different grades have varying levels of strength, wear resistance, hardness, temperature capacities, and such.

So, here are the different types and kinds of tool steels with brief description of what they are:

Hot Working Grades (H-Grades)

From its term alone, this is the grade you can use to cut even in high temperatures.

Typically, H-grades have lower levels of carbon but have high alloy content. The most common applications of H-grades include hot forging, hot extrusion, swaging, trimming, and so on.

Shock Resisting Grades (S-Grades)

An S-grade tool steel would be what you want to get if you need shock resistance. Because of its low carbon content, you’ll get the hardness you’re looking for but high impact capacities.

You can use S-grade tool steels in a wide variety of applications, which include, but are not limited to chisels, battering tools, chuck and clutch jaws, shears, etc.

NOTE: S-grades are applicable for both hot and cold applications.

Oil Hardening Grades (O-Grades)

O-grade tool steels are best for applications where abrasion resistance is the priority. You can treat and consider O-grades to be part of the general-purpose tools.

When it comes to applications, you can use it for blanking dies, arbors, trimming and bushing, knurling, and so on.

D Type Grades (D-Grades)

The D-type tool steel grade is the grade you want to get if you’re looking for high chromium and high carbon content. Formed with the purpose of creating material that is both abrasion resistant and hard (air-hardened), you can use it in a wide variety of applications, which include:

• Die drawing
• Die block casting
• Burnishing
• Trimming
• Coining
• Blanking

Air Hardening Grades (A-Grades)

From the term alone, an A-grade or a air-hardened grade tool steel is versatile and flexible. They are the most popular for their characteristic of being balanced and having good machinability levels.

Thanks to heat treatment, an A-grade tool steel has low distortion and just the right amount of balance between toughness and wear resistance.

Some of the most customary applications include, but are not limited to:

• Woodworking
• Die bending
• Embossing
• Lamination
• Blanking
• Arbors
• And so on!

These are the different classifications of tool steel grades that you can find in the market. All of them have their purpose; they are useful and their benefits would depend on the workpiece and the use you have for them.

What are the Mechanical Properties of Tool Steel?

In finding the tool steel to purchase, what you need to be keen on are the mechanical properties.

Image of how heat resistance looks like in tool steels

These properties are like the “specifications” if you are to purchase or buy a new smartphone. Therefore, by being able to identify these mechanical properties, you can easily find the best and the fittest tool steel for your project or application.

The three (3) primary mechanical properties of tool steel are: Heat Resistance, Wear Resistance, and Toughness. We’ll discuss all of these in further detail below:

Heat Resistance

Heat resistance, in the simplest ways and definitions, is the ability of the steel to resist heat. It’s basically the steel’s ability to be placed under extreme temperatures without the fear of being burnt or melted.

The higher the heat resistance of a material is, the stronger and the more capable it is to be under extremely dangerous temperatures.

Wear Resistance

A tool steel’s wear resistance level is its ability to resist damage or wear/usage. If heat resistance pertains to the ability or the capacity of the steel to resist heat, wear resistance is the ability of steel to keep its form from any type of damage.

The most common types and classifications of wear include:

• Corrosion
• Abrasion
• Adhesion

Toughness

Last, but most definitely not the least of the mechanical properties of tool steel is the toughness.

Toughness is the steel’s ability to resist breakage. While you can relay it closely to wear resistance, toughness does not measure the steel’s resistance against abrasion and corrosion. Instead, it directly pertains to the strength and the overall effectiveness of the steel.

In choosing the tool steel to purchase, you’ll definitely be able to specify the tool steel you need by using these properties as your guide.

How are Tool Steels Made and Manufactured?

Akin to different types of steels, you can produce tool steels by following various methods. In fact, we will be detailing one of the most common!

A snapshot from a clip on how tool steels are manufactured

So, without further ado, here’s one of the most customary procedures on how tool steels are produced and manufactured:

Step 1: Electric Arc Furnace Melting (EAF Melting)

Also known as EAF, what this procedure does is it melts metal scraps or chips. It is like melting fragments of metals that are from other materials that have the same properties of what you need for your tool steel.

Step 2: ESR or Electroslag Refining

Electroslag refining or ESR is one of the procedures that you can do and perform to produce tool steels.

In this procedure, you melt the metal continuously. This results to the ingots gaining surface quality that’s smooth and flawless.

Tool steels that are produced via ESR are cleaner, more ductile, has higher hotness workability, heightened resistance against fatigue, and many more!

The only main drawback is that ESR is an expensive and a costly procedure.

Step 3: Rolling (Hot and/or Cold)

The next step is rolling. Rolling is a procedure that you can do to give the tool steel the initial shape you want it to have.

Hot rolling is what you need to do to give the shape, while doing cold rolling can give the workpiece or the product the tolerance and the hardness it needs.

Step 4: Finishing

Polishing or finishing the tool steel will depend on the type of tool steel you’re creating or manufacturing, as well as the properties you want it to have.

There are tool steel manufacturers that use powder metallurgy, while there are those that utilize continuous casting.

In the easiest way possible, this procedure is deemed and is looked at as one of the most common and the most customary procedures of tool steel manufacturing.

What is A2 Tool Steel?

Going back to the different tool steel grades, we know that A2 steel is a type of steel that is air-hardened. Meaning, they’re flexible and ductile – and they have excellent dimensional stability.

In the scale, they just fall perfectly in between D2 high chromium and high carbon content and oil hardening.

It’s a type of tool steel that has about 5% of chromium. Some of the most notable characteristics of A2 tool steel include:

• Deep hardening
• High levels of strength compression
• Good machinability capability
• Non-deforming (flexible and ductile)

Due to these characteristics, A2 tool steels you can find A2 tool steels to be more commonly used in applications that need hardness and flexibility simultaneously. These would include forming dies, shear blades, punches, chuck jaws, hubs, trimming and forming dies, and many more!

A2 vs. D2 Tool Steel

We already know that the A2 tool steel is formed through air-hardening. D2 tool steel, on the other hand, falls under the same process but has higher levels of carbon and chromium in its content.

D2 tool steels are wear resistant in high levels and are stable during heat treatment. In addition to that, D2 tool steels are also corrosion and wear resistant.

On the other hand, A2 tool steels have half the chromium of D2 tool steels and less concentration of carbon.

The hardness of A2 tool steels run and range between HRC 57 and 62, while D2 stands at 54 to 61. What this means is that D2 is less tough, but is also less brittle than A2 tool steels.

Does Tool Steel Rust?

Yes, tool steels, eventually, will become subject to rusting and oxidation.

Rusting can also occur in tool steels

While many types of tool steel are corrosion resistant, they wouldn’t hold the same properties forever. This is also partly the reason why the “wear and tear” process is inevitable in most tool steels.

The “corrosion resistance” that they have can only prolong the steel’s ability to rust and be oxidized.

How Do You Care and Maintain For Your Tool Steels?

The practical maintenance of tool steels does not actually fall far from how you should care for and maintain other tools.

In fact, caring and maintaining tool steels can be summed up in just a few points:

• Clean and wipe fragments and debris off of tool steels after use
• Avoid overusing the tool steel, when it gets hot, pause for a while and let it cool
• Store tool steels appropriately – as much as possible away from other materials that can ruin or damage it
• Never use tool steels meant for wood to work on metal, and other variants of the same sort

Where Can You Find the Best Tool Steel Suppliers?

China is a breeding ground of the best tool steel manufacturing companies. And here in the country, no other tool steel supplier is trusted but us here at Waldun.

For years, Waldun has topped the charts for tool steels. Providing HSS, tungsten carbide, and varying kinds of tool steels, we progressively innovate and experiment.

Why Should You Work With Waldun For Your Tool Steel?

When you work with us here at Waldun, you don’t have to look for another tool steel manufacturer – we’ll be the best you’ll ever work with.

Thanks to the efforts and the expertise of our engineers and technical experts, we’ll be able to craft and create the perfect custom tool steel for your application!

We are ISO and ATSM certified, and we have proven the effectiveness of all our products and services through years of experience.

For all the tool steels you need, you can bank and count on us here at Waldun for it! Give us a call or an email and we’ll be right with you!