Sandvik Ab

John Aucote

Alistair Grearson

Michael John Carpenter

A dense cemented carbide product is described. The product is manufactured from WC with a grain size between 0.1 and 0.4 &mgr;m, fine grain size cobalt and ruthenium powders. The product is used in PCB machining operations where the addition of 10-25% Ru to the binder phase offers up to 25% wear resistant increases and up to 100% increase in chipping resistance in PCB routing compared to conventional materials (6% cobalt and 0.4 &mgr;m grain size).

Tool for drilling/routing of printed circuit board materials

A dense cemented carbide product is described. The product is manufactured from WC with a grain size between 0.1 and 0.4 &frac14; m, fine grain size cobalt and ruthenium powders. The product is used in PCB machining operations where the addition of 10-25% Ru to the binder phase offers up to 25% wear resistant incrases and up to 100% increase in chipping resistance in PCB routing compared to conventional materials (6% cobalt and 0.4 &frac14; m grain size).

The present invention relates to a method of making ultrafine WC&mdash;Co alloys from a well dispersed mixture of fine and non-agglomerated WC and Co powders, wherein the Co powders have a narrow grain size distribution wherein at least 80% of the grains have sizes in the interval x&plus;0.2x with the interval of variation of 0.4x is not smaller than 0.1 um, and a carbon content of approximately the amount necessary to provide eta phase formation.

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Warks, United Kingdom

John Aucote