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collinb

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1/2" spiral router bits in 1/2, 5/16, 3/8 and 1/4 – TiN treated HSS...

 

 

HSS tooling is delivered in is a series of wear resistance coatings --- from less to more: Uncoated HSS or ‘bright finish’, Black-and-Gold, then a series of titanium-based coatings --- TiN, TiCN, TiAIN and a few others that escape me for the moment…Each leave tell-tail colors ranging from purple to yellow…

 

Cobolt tooling is typically delivered in, well... cobalt...

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1/2" spiral router bits in 1/2, 5/16, 3/8 and 1/4 – TiN treated HSS...

 

 

HSS tooling is delivered in is a series of wear resistance coatings --- from less to more: Uncoated HSS or ‘bright finish’, Black-and-Gold, then a series of titanium-based coatings --- TiN, TiCN, TiAIN and a few others that escape me for the moment…Each leave tell-tail colors ranging from purple to yellow…

 

Cobolt tooling is typically delivered in, well... cobolt...

 

Tin is more like a ceramic hard coating, increases tool wear resistance. Cobalt cutters are usually coated with Tin especially the cheaper one.

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Colbalt has a dull gold finish. I have a whole drawer full of drill bits at work and sometimes the cobalt is hard to differentiate from the gold tin finish, but those are easily not cobalt...it's never that shiny or yellow.

 

Tin Coated on left. Cobalt on right

 

 

Cobalt is the underlying bit material and has nothing to do with color. The gold / yellow is TIN. Cobalt looks just like HSS when naked.

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==>Cobalt looks just like HSS when naked.

I’ll go with ‘Like’, but not 'just like'... I know there are different metallurgies, so that could be part of the issue.... But every uncoated cobalt bit I've got tends to be slightly duller/darker/less-bright/whatever – than uncoated HSS…. They just look slightly different – well, for me... :)  Again, could be the metallurgies, or the sample size…  But I bet if you scattered a collection of uncoated HSS and uncoated cobalt on a table, you could pick which-is-which…

 

That's why I voted HSS/TiN... And why I siad cobalt looks like cobalt -- was refering to the slightly darker cast of the unfinished shaft...

 

From the small length of visible shaft that remain uncoated, they look more like HSS than cobalt…  Course, it would have helped to have a better photo... But then we wouldn't get to have so much fun avoiding real work...

 

Of course we could go round and round – or we could ask the owner of the bits… :)

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==>Cobalt looks just like HSS when naked.

I’ll go with ‘Like’, but not 'just like'... I know there are different metallurgies, so that could be part of the issue.... But every uncoated cobalt bit I've got tends to be slightly duller/darker/less-bright/whatever – than uncoated HSS…. They just look slightly different – well, for me... :)  Again, could be the metallurgies, or the sample size…  But I bet if you scattered a collection of uncoated HSS and uncoated cobalt on a table, you could pick which-is-which…

 

That's why I voted HSS/TiN... And why I siad cobalt looks like cobalt -- was refering to the slightly darker cast of the unfinished shaft...

 

From the small length of visible shaft that remain uncoated, they look more like HSS than cobalt…  Course, it would have helped to have a better photo... But then we wouldn't get to have so much fun avoiding real work...

 

Of course we could go round and round – or we could ask the owner of the bits… :)

 

I was just guessing just like you. I think the issue was really the coating color that made the OP post the question. I think we can all agree that its likely TIN and the bit itself is a mystery.

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I've got a couple of sets of drills and a couple sets of mills in black/G-O... Not 'gold-looking' enough to be the King...

 

Looking at the photo again, I may have made a bad assumption... The more I look at the four bits as a set, the more I'm not sure they are a set... I'm 99% the 1/2" is HSS/TiN, but I'm not convinced about the middle two... Those could be cobalt, or maybe HSS in need of a good cleaning...

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