Device for Wood-Cutting Tool Hardening

Choosing effective methods and devices for surface hardening of wood-cutting tools is problematic due to the variety of their designs and operating conditions. In this regard, the development of such devices becomes an urgent task. According to the literature, one of the effective methods for increasing the service life of machine parts and tools is electrospark hardening or electrospark alloying. Industrial electrospark installations such as “EFI” (electrophysical measurements) and “Elitron” with manual vibrators are used for electrospark hardening. However, using manual vibrators significantly increases the labour intensity and hardening time. Moreover, the surface quality after hardening with manual vibrators is often unsatisfactory. Various mechanized installations have been developed in order to reduce the labour intensity of electrospark hardening. Nevertheless, these installations are designed to harden specific parts and do not allow hardening tools of various designs, including woodcutting tools. The surface quality after hardening in mechanized installations does not always satisfy the customer. Further surface plastic deformation treatments, such as rolling and unrolling with rollers and balls, as well as diamond burnishing, are often used to improve the surface quality after electrospark hardening. The surface quality after additional processing by these methods boosts, although the labour intensity and cost of the hardening process increase. To increase the wear resistance of machine parts and tools, it is reasonable to reduce the height parameters of roughness, increase microhardness, and form the residual compressive stresses, which is ensured by the methods of surface plastic deformation. In this regard, it becomes necessary to use electrospark hardening simultaneously with surface plastic deformation. The work presents the design and features of using the device for hardening. The device was used to strengthen the thicknesser machine knives, which made it possible to almost double their durability. Applying this device, in comparison with using the electrospark hardening with a manual vibrator, reduces the roughness of the hardened surface and improves the surface quality of the processed workpieces. The modes of hardening have been installed, making it possible to effectively harden wood-cutting tools. For citation: Buglaev A.M. Device for Wood-Cutting Tool Hardening. Lesnoy Zhurnal [Russian Forestry Journal], 2021, no. 5, pp. 134–141. DOI: 10.37482/0536-1036-2021-5-134-141