Carbide grades, fully explained
ANSI C-grades, ISO P/M/K letters, coatings — the complete naming system for what a carbide is built to do.
CARBIDE REFERENCE
The Tungsten Carbide Dictionary.
Every kind of carbide scrap, every grade, every trade term — explained in plain English, no jargon left standing. Inserts, end mills, brazed carbide, saw blades, wear parts, coatings, the recycling loop. Bookmark this page. When you want to understand carbide, start here.
REAL IRONCREST LOADS
What carbide scrap looks like when we buy it
Real loads Sonny bought — not stock photos. Mixed tooling, worn inserts, end mills: this is what a carbide scrap pile actually looks like.
A TO Z
The tungsten carbide dictionary
Every entry in one line of plain English. Tap any term for the full page — what it is, what it looks like, where it's found, and what to know before you sell it.
Related: how to spot real tungsten carbide, carbide grade quiz.
A
- ANSI C-grades
- The letter-and-number system (C1, C2, C6...) that names what a carbide is built to do.
- APT (ammonium paratungstate)
- One of the tungsten compounds made along the chemical recycling route, on the way back to powder.
B
- Brazed carbide
- Carbide tips or pieces brazed onto a steel body — strong scrap, its own tier.
- Burrs & rotary tooling
- Carbide rotary burrs and files — small, dense, fully carbide.
C
- Carbide (the material)
- Tungsten carbide: tungsten grains in a cobalt binder, nearly as hard as diamond.
- Cemented carbide
- The technical name for tungsten carbide — powder pressed and baked, not melted.
- CNMG & insert designations
- The codes stamped on indexable inserts (CNMG, DNMG, SNMG...) — what the letters mean.
- Coatings — TiN, TiAlN, AlTiN
- The gold, bronze, and gray coatings on carbide tooling — thin, and they don't add scrap weight.
- Cobalt binder
- The metal glue holding carbide grains together — and why carbide sticks to a magnet.
D
- Dies & punches
- Drawing dies and forming punches — solid carbide where steel wears out.
- Drills
- Solid carbide drills — dense, heavy, top-tier scrap.
E
- End mills
- Solid carbide end mills — the classic machine-shop carbide scrap.
- Export ban (tungsten, 2026)
- The federal rule keeping US tungsten scrap in the US market.
G
- Grades explained
- ANSI C-grades, ISO P/M/K letters, coatings — the full naming system.
H
- HSS (high-speed steel) lookalike
- The steel that fools sellers — how to prove your tooling is carbide, not HSS.
- How carbide is recycled
- The zinc process and the recycling loop, in plain language.
I
- Identification — what am I holding?
- The magnet, spark, weight, and scratch tests with the nuances that matter.
- Identification — the field version
- A second field guide for telling tungsten carbide from the lookalikes.
- Indexable inserts
- Replaceable carbide cutting tips — the most common carbide scrap form.
- ISO grades — P, M, K
- The color-coded letters on insert boxes: what steel, stainless, and cast iron they're meant for.
M
- Magnet test
- Why carbide sticks to a magnet (the cobalt binder) — and what that does and doesn't prove.
- Mail-in carbide
- Sell from anywhere: how the mail-in program works.
- Mining & drilling bits
- Carbide buttons and inserts in mining and oilfield tooling.
N
- Nozzles — sandblast & waterjet
- Carbide throats that survive abrasive flow — solid carbide scrap.
P
- Pricing explained (no prices)
- What moves carbide's value — form, sorting, cleanliness — with zero per-pound numbers.
- Punches
- Solid carbide forming punches — heavy, dense, hard as glass.
R
- Recycling process
- Direct recycling, the zinc process, and where your scrap goes.
- Router bits
- Carbide router and shaper bits — brazed carbide on steel shanks.
S
- Saw blades — carbide-tipped
- Only the brazed tips are carbide; the body is steel. Sell them whole.
- Sludge & swarf
- Grinding dust and chips — recyclable, lowest tier, handled by the chemical route.
- Solid carbide
- One-piece carbide tooling — the top value tier.
- Sorting
- Separate carbide from steel, HSS, and ceramic before you sell — the step that pays for itself.
- Spark test
- What the sparks tell you when you touch carbide to a grinder.
- Spent tooling
- Worn, chipped, broken — how to turn used tooling into cash.
T
- TiN coating
- The gold coating on carbide inserts — thin, cosmetic to a buyer, no extra weight.
- Tungsten carbide
- The material itself: what it is, why it's hard, why it's valuable.
- Tool steel lookalike
- Weight, hardness, spark — proving it's carbide, not steel.
U
- Unused carbide tooling
- New, still-in-the-box tooling — bought as surplus, not scrap.
V
- Value estimator
- Estimate what your carbide lot is worth from form and weight — no prices published.
W
- Wear parts
- Dies, punches, nozzles, wear plates — solid carbide built to outlast steel.
- What tools contain carbide
- The full map: inserts, end mills, saw tips, dies, mining bits, and more.
- Who uses carbide
- The industries generating carbide scrap — machine shops, stamping, mining, and beyond.
- Why carbide is so valuable
- Tungsten's rarity and the cost of making it — plain language.
Z
- Zinc process
- How recyclers pull the cobalt binder out and recover clean carbide powder.
INTERACTIVE
Spin it: the indexable insert.
Drag to rotate. This is the shape carbide scrap most often takes — the replaceable cutting tip from CNC tooling, center clamp hole and all.
A triangular indexable carbide insert — the replaceable cutting tip from CNC tooling. The dark steel-gray body is tungsten carbide; the center hole is where the clamp screw goes. Drag to spin it, pinch or scroll to zoom.
GO DEEPER
The reference shelf
When one dictionary line isn't enough, these are the full guides behind it.
Carbide Resource Center
Markets, pricing explained, quizzes, and every carbide tool on the site in one place.
Sell carbide in Chicago
Same-day pickup across Chicago, paid within 24–48 hours. How selling your carbide works, start to finish.
MORE REFERENCE
Sister dictionaries
Ironcrest buys more than carbide. The same plain-English treatment, one dictionary per metal.
Related: carbide market news.
Copper Wire Dictionary
Every copper wire type, grade, and trade term — bare bright, #1, #2, insulated, hair wire, MCM feeders.
Brass & Bronze Dictionary
Brass and bronze grades, forms, and terms in plain English — the yellow-metal companion to this page.
READY TO SELL
Know what you've got? Turn it into cash.
You've done the homework — now get today's number. Call or text a photo of your carbide: 312-880-8174. Same-day pickup across Chicago, paid within 24–48 hours. Traveling nationwide for the right load.
Related: sell carbide scrap in Detroit, sell carbide scrap in Grand Rapids, sell carbide scrap in Warren, sell carbide scrap in Sterling Heights, sell carbide scrap in Dearborn, sell carbide scrap in Milwaukee, sell carbide scrap in Madison, sell carbide scrap in Kenosha, sell carbide scrap in Racine, sell carbide scrap in Waukesha, sell carbide scrap in Gary, sell carbide scrap in Hammond.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Questions, answered.
What forms of tungsten carbide does Ironcrest buy?
Inserts, end mills, drills, brazed tooling, saw blades, wear parts (dies, punches, nozzles), sludge and swarf, and unused surplus tooling. Worn is normal — carbide is bought worn all day long. The what is carbide page is the starting point if you're new.
Do carbide saw blades count as carbide scrap?
Yes — worn carbide-tipped blades are bought whole, tips on the blade. Only the brazed tips are carbide; the steel body is handled in the deal. Full page: Carbide Saw Blades.
How do I know my tooling is carbide and not HSS?
Weight, magnet, spark, and scratch tests — the identification guide walks through all of them, and Carbide vs. HSS covers the most common mix-up.
Can I sell carbide from outside Chicago?
Yes. Text photos to 312-880-8174 for a quote anywhere — mail-in carbide works nationwide. Same-day pickup is a Chicago promise; elsewhere I'll travel for the right load.
Does Ironcrest publish carbide prices?
No per-pound prices are published — the market moves daily. What moves the value (form, sorting, cleanliness) is explained openly; call 312-880-8174 for today's number.