Choosing the Right Steel for Your Tooling

Tooling is a key component of any manufacturing project, both because they are a significant investment and a considerable influence on the overall quality of the manufacturing results. Tooling durability and longevity will depend on the application and the tool steel used to create the tooling. Below we take a dive into two different types of steel commonly used for tooling — tool steel and powder metal.

Choosing the right steel for your tooling will depend on several factors, including the conditions it will endure. Some questions must be answered to determine which will work for your application. Does it need a sharp edge? What type of heat treatment is required? Does it need to be abrasion resistant? Does it need to withstand impact? Will it be used at high speeds? Will it be used at high or low temperatures?

Tool Steel

Tool steel refers to carbon and alloy steel used to make a wide variety of tooling. The alloying elements give them the necessary properties required for various applications. In general, tool steels offer a fairly high material hardness, toughness that makes it resistant to breaking or chipping, wear resistance, abrasion and erosion resistance, and good thermal properties. It comes in different grades that have their own properties that are impacted by the percentage of each alloy.

A-grade is air-hardened tool steel that respond well to heat treatment. They have great wear resistance and toughness. D-grade is a cold working steel with higher carbon content than W-grade but offers wear resistance and toughness. O-grade is an oil-hardened, cold-working tool steel. This versatile general-purpose steel has great abrasion resistance and high toughness properties. S-grade is shock-resisting, low-carbon tool steel with high toughness. It is resistant to shock at low and high temperatures. W-grade is water hardening and contains low-cost high-carbon steel with high hardness and fragility. It isn’t suitable for high-temperature use.

A2 is an air-hardened chromium alloy steel. This multi-purpose steel offers good toughness, intermediate wear resistance, and excellent dimensional stability in heat treatment. Tooling applications include dies, punches, shear and slitter blades, knurling tools, and more.

A8 is an air-hardening tool steel that offers a combination of very good toughness, intermediate wear resistance, and excellent dimensional stability in heat treatment. A8 is often chosen for punches and dies that operate in the 55-60 Rockwell C hardness range.

Caldie is a chromium-molybdenum vanadium alloyed tool steel, which provides a combination of high toughness, good wear resistance, and dimensional stability on heat treatment. It is used in tooling that requires good chipping and cracking resistance and good wear resistance.

D2 is an air-hardening, high carbon, high chromium tool steel offering exceptionally high wear resistance properties. It provides an effective combination of wear resistance, toughness, and tool performance for a number of tooling applications, including rolls, punches, and dies for blanking, forming, trimming, and thread rolling.

D7 is an air-hardening, high carbon, high chromium tool steel with added carbon and vanadium for exceptional abrasion-resisting qualities. It was developed especially for applications involving extreme abrasive wear.

H13 is a 5% chromium, ultra-high strength air-hardened steel with higher content of molybdenum and vanadium. This combination provides a combination of excellent toughness and high wear resistance. It is often used in hot work tooling with applications such as inserts, cores, and cavities for dies, ejector pins, and nozzles.

M2 is a tungsten-molybdenum high-speed steel that offers good red hardness, toughness, and wear resistance. Tooling applications include drills taps, end mills, reamers, lathe and planer tools, broaches and boring tools, and more.

O1 is a general-purpose oil-hardened steel that offers good abrasion resistance and abundant toughness for a wide variety of tool and dies applications.

S7 is an oil or air-hardened, shock-resistant steel that offers very high impact toughness and high strength, along with medium wear resistance. Its applications include various dies, chisels, punches, rivet sets, and shear blades.

W1 is a water-hardened tool steel with a high carbon content that allows for a keen cutting edge. It offers moderate wear resistance. It is often used in various dies, drills, punches, taps, reamers, wood knives, embossing taps, and more.

Powder Metal Steels

Powder metals (PM) or PM high-speed steels are alternatives to conventional steels. Metal powders are the base materials for these steels. Through powered metallurgy, the powders are pressed into the desired shape and sintered (heated) to bond the material to produce the desired qualities, such as high-temperature strength, high-wear resistance, and toughness. Crucible particle metallurgy (CPM) is a powdered metallurgy process developed by Crucible Industries. Common PM steels used in tooling include:

CPM 1V tool steel is a high alloy, medium-carbon tool steel that exhibits high impact toughness, extreme heat resistance, and moderate wear resistance. It should be considered for blanking dies, cold and hot forging punches, gear rolling dies, shear blades, and sizing dies.

CPM 3V is an air-hardened tool steel that exhibits high impact strength and good wear resistance, providing maximum resistance to breakage and chipping. Blanking and sizing dies, shear blades, cold and hot forging punches, powder compaction tooling, and other tooling are made from it.

CPM 9V is an air-hardened tool steel that exhibits very high wear resistance, impact toughness, and heat resistance. Its durability is lower than other hot work tool steels. It is used in applications where resistance to thermal fatigue cracking is important, such as plastic injection feeder screws, non-return valves, shear blades, and forging dies. It has improved toughness compared to 10V.

CPM 10V is an air-hardened tool steel that exhibits high wear resistance and high impact toughness. Offer better wear resistance than high-carbon, high-chromium die steels.

CPM 15V is a cold work tool steel that provides unmatched wear resistance and provides longer tool life than 10V. It is also an alternative to sintered carbide in applications where solid carbide fractures or for intricate tool designs that are not possible with carbide.

CPM Rec M4, or PM M4, is a high-speed tool steel that provides a combination of high wear resistance with high impact toughness and bend strength. It is commonly used in form tooling, punches, broach inserts, taps, and header tooling.

Vanadis 4 Extra is a versatile tool steel manufactured by Uddeholm that offers a combination of ductility, wear resistance, and toughness. It is especially suitable for applications where adhesive wear and chipping are the primary failure mechanisms.

Get Expert Tooling With Pivot

At Pivot, we work with a variety of steel and other materials to deliver tooling you can count on. With shorter lead times and competitive pricing, we can provide the high-quality, high-precision tooling you need to get the job done. Contact us to discuss your tooling requirements.