Colourful Cutters ?

[graham-xrf]

It's a cutter à la chinoise from Banggood, actually my first Banggood purchase.
It's quite the prettiest cutting tool thing I have ever seen!

I get it that such colours, like as seen in soap bubbles, or camera lens coatings, or on a bit of metal heated, are all about the thickness of the transparent coating in odd numbers of quarter-wavelengths. In the last quarter-wavelength, the thinnest interfere blues and violets, leaving yellow, and so on.

I guess they work and wear out like any other, unless that coating is amazing!
I just think the colourful stuff adds something to the appearance among steel surfaces and chips

 

[FOMOGO]

"Pretty is as pretty does" Forest Gump. Let us know how it holds up. Mike

 

[Doug Gray]

My wife has earrings like that!

 

[Aukai]

Sexy....

 

[graham-xrf]

My wife has earrings like that!

Funny you should say that! My wife has a brooch with rainbow colour stones, and she did comment the cutter was like it.

These colours also happen on the stainless steel flue pipe on the woodburner. As the oxide layer thickens each winter, we have a rainbow set of colour bands that steadily march up the pipe, new sets starting at the stove. There are about two and a half sets from yellow to violet, with those nice magenta rings in between.

Coatings and tool wear.
This stuff has got me thinking about coatings on tooling. Titanium nitride, and all that. There is quite a lot to read up on. Apparently tool wear life is greatly enhanced.

Sexy....

Yup! Apparently various kinds of er.. underwear lingerie in these colours are appreciated!

 

[RJSakowski]

A possible concern is the thickness of the TiN coating. If the coating is thin enough, constructive/destructive interference will enhance certain wavelengths of light preferential to others. We see that effect when tempering steel by color or with oil slicks Considering that the wavelength of visible light is between 400 and 700 nm, the TiN coating thickness could be less than 1 micron. In such a case, the TiN coating might be more for visual effects to enhance marketing than to improve cutting edge durability.