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Speaker 1: to Brainstuff from hastaff works dot com where smart happens.

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Speaker 1: Hi'm Marshall Brain with today's question, what are carbide tips?

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Speaker 1: When you buy a saw blade or a drill bit,

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Speaker 1: it'll often say carbide tipped. Carbide or more specifically tungsten.

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Speaker 1: Carbide is a very common material on any sort of

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Speaker 1: cutting tool. For example, sab blades, lave bits, drill bits,

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Speaker 1: router bits, and dental drilling tips are usually made out

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Speaker 1: of carbide. Carbide is so popular in these sorts of

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Speaker 1: tools because it stays sharper longer than most other materials. Additionally,

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Speaker 1: some ballpoint pens use carbide balls because it helps the

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Speaker 1: pen to last longer. With something like a carbide tip,

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Speaker 1: sob blade, the main body of the blade is made

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Speaker 1: of steel. The small tips of carbide are brazed onto

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Speaker 1: that steel body. A good carbide tip might hold an

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Speaker 1: edge ten to twenty times longer than a steel tip.

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Speaker 1: Carbide tips do get dull. Eventually you sharpen them using

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Speaker 1: the same techniques you would use to sharpen steel, but

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Speaker 1: because they are so hard, you use a different abrasive.

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Speaker 1: Something coated in diamond or a carbide abrasive wheel is common.

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Speaker 1: If you've read how diamonds work, you know that diamond

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Speaker 1: or pure crystalline carbon is the hardest material there is.

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Speaker 1: Moistenite or silicon carbide is very close. Tungsten carbide and

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Speaker 1: titanium carbide are both made of the metal combined with

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Speaker 1: car urban, and they are also very hard. Tools aren't

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Speaker 1: made entirely of carbide, partly because it would be very expensive,

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Speaker 1: but also because the tool would be very brittle. Steel

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Speaker 1: is actually a better material for the body of the

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Speaker 1: tool because it's tougher and it's less likely to crack

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Speaker 1: or shatter. And you do you have any ideas or

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Speaker 1: suggestions for this podcast? If so, please send me an

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Speaker 1: email at podcast at how stuff works dot com. For

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Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, go to

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Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com and be sure to check

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