Guhring UK responds to the carbide crisis

With carbide prices climbing and no sign of where they will settle, Guhring is urging manufacturers to take a harder look at regrinding. Guhring UK’s National Sales Manager Chris Bush explains how the company’s UK facility restores worn tools to new-tool performance, and why the maths increasingly speaks for itself.

The rising cost of carbide has forced manufacturers across every sector to re-examine how they buy, use and dispose of cutting tools. For Chris, the answer is one that many workshops have underused for years: “It’s something people need to focus on a bit more given the current carbide crisis. We do it all in our UK facility, including in-house coating and de-coating. We regrind tools on the same machines used to manufacture new tools.”

That single-site capability is central to Guhring’s offering. The company’s purpose-built operation in Birmingham runs 20 CNC cutter grinders, every one of them Guhring-made.

“We can do small batches and big batches,” he reveals. “We’re able to regrind both Guhring-made tools and those from other manufacturers. We can guarantee the same quality regrind.”

Far more than end mills

The regrind service covers almost any tool with a cutting edge. Guhring can regrind gun drills, normal twist drills, thread mills, end mills and re-tip PCD tools. The latter is a reminder that high-value tooling is exactly where the savings bite hardest.

Guhring UK’s service is also available to small job shops. The company can easily handle mixed batches, asking only for a sensible minimum to justify machine set-up.

“We do a minimum order of three of the same tools, as we need to set up,” comments Chris. “This perfectly suits SME manufacturers with smaller tool inventories.”

Coatings that match the original

Where many regrind facilities end with regrinding the geometry, Guhring treats the coating as integral to restoring performance.

“With the coating in the UK, we offer 10 different coatings – and it’s all application-specific. Depending on what was on the new tool, we mirror that on the regrind. Crucially, the team strips the old coating before regrinding rather than simply layering over it. An excess build-up of layers becomes unstable and gives a difference in performance that will prevent the tool from performing ‘as-new’.”

In short, Guhring offers the ability to restore tools to OEM-level standards, maintaining tight tolerances, concentricity and edge preparation in the process.

The cost argument

The financial logic is where Chris is most direct, and it hinges on a simple point about how regrinding insulates a tool from the challenges of the carbide market: “Once you’ve bought the new tool and paid for the carbide, the regrinding cost is independent of whether the carbide cost goes up or down. So you can extend your tool lifecycle and use it two, three or more times. Each additional life is won at a fraction of the price of a new tool, and at a price unmoved by the volatility now rippling through the carbide supply chain.”

Stretched across a production run, that compounds quickly.

“The ultimate aim of this reconditioning service is that your cost per part is going to come down if you keep recycling the tool.”

For manufacturers watching their tooling budgets, regrinding is one of the fastest ways to generate significant savings without introducing risk into a proven process.

Quality without compromise

The value of a solid-carbide re-ground tool is maintained only if it performs like a new tool. Here, Chris alludes to the infrastructure that underpins the service.

“Because we process tool regrinds on the same machines as our new tools, they go through the same processes. The regrinds also go through the same inspection processes and equipment as a new tool, so we can guarantee the same quality, the same performance and the same repeatability.”

Closing the loop

When a tool finally reaches the end of its regrind life, Guhring keeps it out of the skip and within the sustainable ecosystem.

“Once a tool has reached the end of its regrind life, we also offer a carbide recycling programme. We’ve got a new facility in Germany that’s expanding all the time, so once the usable life of a tool has been reached, we can recycle.”

This sustainable layer, on top of the cost savings, reduces raw carbide consumption while maximising the value of every tool a customer buys.

For those feeling the squeeze, Guhring UK will be happy to review any manufacturer’s current tool usage and flag which items are suitable for regrinding, along with the potential savings.