turning diamond

[darryl]

I'd like to try turning some diamond, but I'm having trouble finding some scraps to practise on. Anybody have some- I'll gladly pay postage

Apparently there are two materials now that are harder than diamond. One is wurtzite boron nitride, the other is lonsdaleite- both naturally occuring. Neva hoid of either myself. One is half again as hard as diamond, and the other about 20% harder. You could probably chew ceramics all day long with inserts made of these. I wonder if we're about to embark on a new adventure in materials, such as happened with kevlar, carbon fiber, starlite, etc. Maybe this is already old, I don't know.

[mwechtal]

Hold your horses there

I'd like to try turning some diamond, but I'm having trouble finding some scraps to practise on. Anybody have some- I'll gladly pay postage

Apparently there are two materials now that are harder than diamond. One is wurtzite boron nitride, the other is lonsdaleite- both naturally occuring. Neva hoid of either myself. One is half again as hard as diamond, and the other about 20% harder. You could probably chew ceramics all day long with inserts made of these. I wonder if we're about to embark on a new adventure in materials, such as happened with kevlar, carbon fiber, starlite, etc. Maybe this is already old, I don't know.

According to this article, they SIMULATED what would happen in a hardness test, because they don't have enough material to actually do the test. So, it may be a while before practical quantities are available.

diamond-no-longer-natures-hardest-material

[lazlo]

Why not just spin the workpiece fast and use an iron cutting tool?

By the way, on Mike's site, I notice this spring-steel Velco. Pretty neat:

Extreme steel 'Velcro' takes a 35-tonne load