Materials for cutting tools

Cutting tools are instruments designed to work material by removing chips. It seems that the first tools obtained by forging before the beginning of the Christian era were the chisel, the chisel and the asp-tongue drill, followed by the file and the saw.

With the advent of the lathe, the comb enabled the creation of threading tools: first taps, then dies. Until the end of the 19th century, all tools were manufactured either by forging and machining, or by machining alone. The cutting material was molten steel.

In the course of the 20th century, new materials (high-speed steels, metal carbides, ceramics, cermets, diamonds, etc.) and shaping techniques such as casting, grinding, powder metallurgy and coatings were introduced, providing increasingly efficient tools.