Tungsten Carbide Ball

Firstly, we mix tungsten carbide powder and powdered cobalt to form a uniform combination. During the mixing, we added a polymer or wax which acts as a mechanical binder in the pre-sintered stage. A carefully measured volume of this combined powder is compressed by a double acting press to form the tungsten carbide ball blank. The binder is removed by placing the preformed parts in a vacuum chamber and raising the temperature. The binder out gasses and is trapped down stream as a liquid. Secondly, the combined tungsten carbide and cobalt pre-forms are sintered or fused into a solid mass by heating them to a high temperature in a vacuum or hydrogen atmosphere furnace. Some tungsten carbide ball sizes are Hot Isocratic Pressed or hipped. The newest procedure is to Sinter-HIP the parts in a single operation. The metallurgically complete tungsten carbide ball blanks are then rough ground with course diamond to remove all imperfections from the surface. Using micro size diamond dust, they are then finished lapped and polished to final size and microinch roundness with a sub-microinch surface finish, thus got the tungsten carbide balls.