I was just down getting my old CBN grinding wheel dressed, and ordering another one, and bought my gouge down to show them what I grind, and how. The guy there mentioned electroplating the flute on the gouge with a product they call RW 90. He said that it is a hard crome and diamond material that adds life to wood cutting surfaces and helps keep wood, pitch, etc. from sticking to the blades. Has anyone heard of this? He said that it is used a lot on planers and moulders in the lumber industry around here (Oregon). Cost of application would be around $1.25 per inch. robo hippy
RW 90
Mar 24, 2006
3 Replies
--RW90 is probably a reference to the "Rockwell hardness", which is a standard scale. Applying it is probably done via some electronic sputtering process; not sure if it needs to be done in a vacuum; that would definitely bump up the price. For more on this you might try posting at rec.crafts.metalworking (watch out for the jerks!) and possibly at sci.engr.joining.welding, where the jerk ratio is tolerable.
Sounds like a good deal, which I guess is why I'm suspicious. First, won't keep the resin from sticking where it counts - the ground part of the bevel, where friction makes the heat, and second, unless the stuff is not plating, it will only flake off the inside of the edge after grinding or disappear with honing.
I'd save my bucks and assume he's talking about benefit to some other kind of tooling.
Didn't someone briefly market a TiN coated gouge a few years back?
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