Ceramic vs. Carbide Sanding Mandrels

scdiveteam

scdiveteam

Rick Geschrey
Silver Member
Hi,

I am having two brand new sets of Mandrels made and was wondering if anyone had any experience with ceramic.

The carbide ones I have now have served me well but my machinist told me that ceramic was a harder Rockwell than carbide and he would quote me both ways.

Any pros or cons per this issue would be appreciated.

Rick
 
I don't have personal experience with either, but will the ceramic be brittle and break if dropped?
 
Depends on the grade of ceramic being used.
Ceramic is brittle, but if you get a tough grade versus the supper hard grade you might be OK.
If you tend to drop things, don't buy the ceramic.
Another option that I have been thinking about is getting parts TiAlN coated, like the gold coating on cutting inserts. Not sure of the price though.
I will make some enquires and get to you next week or so about it.
Neil
 
conetip said:
Depends on the grade of ceramic being used.
Ceramic is brittle, but if you get a tough grade versus the supper hard grade you might be OK.
If you tend to drop things, don't buy the ceramic.
Another option that I have been thinking about is getting parts TiAlN coated, like the gold coating on cutting inserts. Not sure of the price though.
I will make some enquires and get to you next week or so about it.
Neil
Click to expand...

Neil,

Yes there is a toughness v hardness question concerning the use of the ceramic.

I have not dropped my carbide ones and take special not to let anyone else have access or touch them.

I just want to know if anyone had experience with ceramic.

Thanks for the responses.

Rick
 
Here is my thought. You know Carbide works fine. I have been using a set since the Mid 90's. So why take the chance on wasting the money since Carbide has proven to hold up fine? What advantage would there be to gain? With little to nothing to gain and a risk factor of hundreds of dollars I don't see any reason to go that way, unless ceramic is much cheaper.
 
Ceramic mandrils? What a GREAT idea - sure wish I'd thought of trying that first. Oh, wait, I DID... kind of.

As the originator of carbide sanding mandrils I have a good deal of knowledge on the subject. The problem with ceramic mandrils is they are easily sanded down with silicon carbide paper - which is the "wet/dry" paper we all use when sanding finish. So your mandrils would not even make it through one cue before becoming useless.

In the late 80's Leonard Bludworth and I were sharing ideas back and forth on methods for improving the cue making/manufacturing process. I described for him an experiment I was working on using a ball bearing positioned between the butt and the lathe drive in an effort to control the joint size more precisely when sanding a cue. A while later he came back at me with his extension of that idea - he had a machine shop make hardened steel mandrils for accomplishing the same thing.

I then took his improvement and extended it to using carbide mandrils. I had a carbide manufacturing shop make me a couple dozen oversize carbide cylinders, which I then used to fashion sanding mandrils. Once I perfected the idea I sent some of the blanks to Leonard along with the how-to I had developed and he built his own set.

The technique remained our secret until the early 90's when Paul Costain came out with the Uni-Loc quick-connect joint screw. I contacted Paul and - after swearing him to secrecy - described the sanding mandril device and asked him to make me a set with the Uni--Loc pins system. He came back a few days later with the proposal of making them in ceramic, and I told him I'd try it. As soon as they arrived I tried them and found out why they wouldn't work - Paul didn't know about the whole silicon carbide problem either.

So he made me a replacement set in carbide, which I still have - also still have the original, useless ceramic set. Not being one to let a little thing like a promise get in the way of making money Paul almost immediately began producing and selling carbide sanding mandrils to go along with his Uni-Loc system... so now the secret was out. And I learned the valuable lesson of always getting non-disclosure agreements in writing.

TW
 
Thanks TW & Chris,

I agree with what you said about risk and reward Chris and that was my thoughts exactly.

After TW sharing his view and experience I will not use the ceramic material for good reason.

Again thanks for all the good advise.

Rick
 
scdiveteam said:
Thanks TW & Chris,

I agree with what you said about risk and reward Chris and that was my thoughts exactly.

After TW sharing his view and experience I will not use the ceramic material for good reason.

Again thanks for all the good advise.

Rick
Click to expand...

Can you use PCD ?
 
Thomas Wayne said:
Ceramic mandrils? What a GREAT idea - sure wish I'd thought of trying that first. Oh, wait, I DID... kind of.

As the originator of carbide sanding mandrils I have a good deal of knowledge on the subject. The problem with ceramic mandrils is they are easily sanded down with silicon carbide paper - which is the "wet/dry" paper we all use when sanding finish. So your mandrils would not even make it through one cue before becoming useless.

In the late 80's Leonard Bludworth and I were sharing ideas back and forth on methods for improving the cue making/manufacturing process. I described for him an experiment I was working on using a ball bearing positioned between the butt and the lathe drive in an effort to control the joint size more precisely when sanding a cue. A while later he came back at me with his extension of that idea - he had a machine shop make hardened steel mandrils for accomplishing the same thing.

I then took his improvement and extended it to using carbide mandrils. I had a carbide manufacturing shop make me a couple dozen oversize carbide cylinders, which I then used to fashion sanding mandrils. Once I perfected the idea I sent some of the blanks to Leonard along with the how-to I had developed and he built his own set.

The technique remained our secret until the early 90's when Paul Costain came out with the Uni-Loc quick-connect joint screw. I contacted Paul and - after swearing him to secrecy - described the sanding mandril device and asked him to make me a set with the Uni--Loc pins system. He came back a few days later with the proposal of making them in ceramic, and I told him I'd try it. As soon as they arrived I tried them and found out why they wouldn't work - Paul didn't know about the whole silicon carbide problem either.

So he made me a replacement set in carbide, which I still have - also still have the original, useless ceramic set. Not being one to let a little thing like a promise get in the way of making money Paul almost immediately began producing and selling carbide sanding mandrils to go along with his Uni-Loc system... so now the secret was out. And I learned the valuable lesson of always getting non-disclosure agreements in writing.

TW
Click to expand...

I was making stainless steel joint masters in the late 80's then in the early 90's tried hardened steel and then went to Carbide in the mid 90's. I came up with the idea for stainless mandrels by looking at how easy it was to match shafts to stainless jointed cues. I always thought David Kersenbrock came up with the idea for the cabide ones. We learn something new all the time.
 
So are you looking at getting a set ceramic sprayed onto the mandrel, then having that diamond ground to final size? a bit like the coating on bike piston crowns ?

Neil
 
Thomas Wayne said:
Ceramic mandrils? What a GREAT idea - sure wish I'd thought of trying that first. Oh, wait, I DID... kind of.

As the originator of carbide sanding mandrils I have a good deal of knowledge on the subject. The problem with ceramic mandrils is they are easily sanded down with silicon carbide paper - which is the "wet/dry" paper we all use when sanding finish. So your mandrils would not even make it through one cue before becoming useless.

In the late 80's Leonard Bludworth and I were sharing ideas back and forth on methods for improving the cue making/manufacturing process. I described for him an experiment I was working on using a ball bearing positioned between the butt and the lathe drive in an effort to control the joint size more precisely when sanding a cue. A while later he came back at me with his extension of that idea - he had a machine shop make hardened steel mandrils for accomplishing the same thing.

I then took his improvement and extended it to using carbide mandrils. I had a carbide manufacturing shop make me a couple dozen oversize carbide cylinders, which I then used to fashion sanding mandrils. Once I perfected the idea I sent some of the blanks to Leonard along with the how-to I had developed and he built his own set.

The technique remained our secret until the early 90's when Paul Costain came out with the Uni-Loc quick-connect joint screw. I contacted Paul and - after swearing him to secrecy - described the sanding mandril device and asked him to make me a set with the Uni--Loc pins system. He came back a few days later with the proposal of making them in ceramic, and I told him I'd try it. As soon as they arrived I tried them and found out why they wouldn't work - Paul didn't know about the whole silicon carbide problem either.

So he made me a replacement set in carbide, which I still have - also still have the original, useless ceramic set. Not being one to let a little thing like a promise get in the way of making money Paul almost immediately began producing and selling carbide sanding mandrils to go along with his Uni-Loc system... so now the secret was out. And I learned the valuable lesson of always getting non-disclosure agreements in writing.

TW
Click to expand...

Very helpful story. Relating these type of experiences are what this forum needs more of. You just saved a man many hundreds of dollars. You may have saved more than one person as there is a good chance that after his purchase, and resulting failure, may not have mentioned the experience through embarrassment.

Thanks,
Dick
 
Thomas-
Was your ceramic the spray on version or the sintered version like carbide rings?
Neil
 
conetip said:
Thomas-
Was your ceramic the spray on version or the sintered version like carbide rings?
Neil
Click to expand...

Not sure how the ceramic was made, but is was solid (not a coating) and a very pure white color. Very hard - you probably couldn't have scratched it with a razor knife - but sanded down like butter with SC paper.

TW
 
Well, I got a Black ceramic cutting insert, and rubbed it with wet dry paper, all that happen was the paper went dull. I could not put any scratches against the finish on the insert.
With a Gold coated carbide insert, there was some change to the initial look of the coating. But did not manage to sand through it. On the linisher, I could easily cut through the gold coat on a corner and grind some of the carbide away, but with the Black Ceramic, it cut a slot through the belt, but did score the edge a little, but way less than the Gold coated carbide.

The next level is, can this Black Ceramic be purchased as a ring stock material?
 
conetip said:
Well, I got a Black ceramic cutting insert, and rubbed it with wet dry paper, all that happen was the paper went dull. I could not put any scratches against the finish on the insert.
With a Gold coated carbide insert, there was some change to the initial look of the coating. But did not manage to sand through it. On the linisher, I could easily cut through the gold coat on a corner and grind some of the carbide away, but with the Black Ceramic, it cut a slot through the belt, but did score the edge a little, but way less than the Gold coated carbide.

The next level is, can this Black Ceramic be purchased as a ring stock material?
Click to expand...

Good, make a 3-wing 1 7/8 saw blade with 5/16 ID.:D
 
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