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Chemical milling of a spark machined pressing tool of alloyed steel

Hello anybody!

I'm looking for a chemical milling or etching process to eliminate the hard remelted surface layer obtained after spark machining of a chromium/molybdenum/vanadium-alloyed steel. This operation is performed in the manufacture of pressing tools.

The layer thickness is of the order of 10 to 20 microns. At present the layer is eliminated mechanically by polishing which is very labour intensive and loading from a working environment perspective.

The ideal process should proceed at a moderate rate in a controllable way so that overetching can be safely avoided. In the choice of chemistry and equipment consideration must of course be taken to environmental aspects.

Anyone with insight in these problems please get in touch!

Harald Ottertun
The Swedish Institute of Production Engineering Research - Sweden
1999

Electropolishing may be an alternative to consider. I cannot provide any more details on the procedure, but information about processing for EP should be readily available.

Larry Hanke
Minneapolis, Minnesota
1999

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