Getting a target customer to place an order isn’t easy.
Today, a customer who added me on WeChat back on January 30, 2021, finally placed an order—it took a year and eight months.
Although it took a while, the outcome was great.
Many of my clients come to me this way: they might add me today but not place an order, or inquire tomorrow but still not place an order—yet perhaps years later, they’ll place an order because they simply can’t figure out the mold on their own.
Mr. Lin reached out again yesterday: “Mr. Wu, this type of stainless steel shaft with pressed teeth is prone to chipping and collapsing. Do you have any suitable materials to recommend? So far, we’ve tried SKH9, DC53, and LD, but none have had a good service life.”
After discussing it in detail, I learned that Mr. Lin’s current mold involves pressing a tooth profile onto a stainless steel round shaft with a hardness of around 400 HV. The current mold is prone to chipping and collapsing; he has tried SKH9, DC53, and LD, but none have provided satisfactory service life. SKH9 and DC53 suffer from severe chipping, while LD experiences both chipping and indentations.
Having examined his products and dies, this is a single-sided flattening stamping operation. The stamping surface is very small and long, resulting in a small load-bearing area for the die, which places high demands on its strength and toughness.
The stainless steel round bar used in this application is a hard material, and flattening it requires significant force. DC53 and LD are high-carbon cold-work tool steels with a hardness of 60–62 HRC; for this application, their hardness is slightly too low, which can lead to corner collapse, and their toughness is also somewhat lacking, making them prone to chipping.
SKH-9 is a conventional cast high-speed steel with an alloy composition of W6Mo5Cr4V2. After heat treatment, it achieves a hardness of 62–64 HRC. While it offers high hardness and good wear resistance, it is hard and brittle, so chipping of the corners is to be expected.
It is reasonable to use high-speed steel for the die when flattening hard stainless steel round bars; however, ordinary cast high-speed steel should not be used, as it suffers from severe segregation—it offers high hardness but lacks high strength, commonly referred to as having poor toughness, making it prone to chipping. For this application, PM23 high-speed steel, produced using advanced powder metallurgy processes, should be selected. With a hardness of 64–66 HRC, it combines both high hardness and high strength to meet the requirements of this application.
Since they had already tested three types of die steel and couldn’t afford any more trial and error, Mr. Lin had his procurement staff place the order immediately after this consultation.
Every order is hard-earned; you have to handle it with care.
Service paves the way, expertise secures the order, and quality ensures repeat business—you must tread carefully at every step.
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Wu Dejian’s tool steel, the chief of staff of the user, bought everything he had used.