Tungsten carbide is a versatile industry standard when it comes to hard facing. It can be applied in a range of different ways such a mig welded wire, brazed rod , vacuume brazed tiles and solid sintered products. See here for ways WC can be applied.

WC comes in a variety of types and forms and these are suited to different applications. To find out about the types of tungsten carbides and some of their applications go here

To find out prices for different types of overlays go here

Types of WC

Tungsten carbide comes in a range of different forms and each of these forms are suited to different applications

Pure tungsten carbide.

In it's pure form WC is at its hardest and is generally available as either cast spherical tungsten carbides, crushed tungsten carbides or tungsten carbide powder. For hardfacing applications typically either spherical or crushed tungsten carbides are used and while the spherical carbides are significantly more expensive they are also significantly harder than crushed carbides and so provide extended wear life.

Sintered tungsten carbide

In this form WC powder is mixed with a metal powder (typically cobalt or nickel) and heated up to a high temperature to fuse the mixture together. Typically sintered WC has between 3% and 25% cobalt. At the lower % cobalt the product is extremely hard but tend to be fairly brittle. As the % of cobalt is increased the hardness decreases but the ability of the product to withstand impact increases dramatically.

Sintered WC is available in either solid tiles, compacts (Such as the patented long life GET product), a powder (For HVOF) or a grit.