Tool steel is particularly attractive to manufacturers compared to steel. As its name suggests, tool steel is very suitable for making tools. It is a very hard, highly heat-resistant and wear-resistant material, with multiple grades, suitable for various applications. For such a high-quality material, the 3D printing industry certainly has a great demand, as CEO markforge pointed out in a recent interview. Markforge will develop tool steel materials for its metal x 3D printer.
It is exciting that nanosteel has taken the lead. Today, the company announced the launch of a new 3D printing tool steel material, which is also the company’s first laser powder bed molten material. Before that, nanosteel had been developing materials for adhesive jet printing with great success.
Bldrmetal l-40 is a surface hardened steel powder with a high level of hardness and ductility. Its surface hardness is > 70hrc and its core elongation is 10% +. It “can be easily printed on standard equipment” and can well replace tool steel that is more difficult to print, such as H13. The parts printed with it have no cracks, which distinguishes them from many other tool steels.
According to the introduction, the new material is superior to M300 maraging steel in performance. It is specially designed for tools, molds, gears, bearings and other parts. The performance of the 8-inch wire rolling die printed with its 3D is better than that of the die processed with D2 and M2 tool steels.
“The launch of bldrmetal? L-40 after the successful printing of the wire rolling die ensures the commercial viability of this new alloy,” the company explained. In terms of development, nanosteel mentioned the 3D printing service provider CFK GmbH, where the company developed this new material rapidly and iteratively.