Pre-Hardened vs. Annealed Die Blocks: Which Saves More Machining Time
Ask three machinists whether Pre-Hardened vs. Annealed Die Blocks save more machining time, and you will probably hear three different answers. Each one can be right, because each is measuring something different. If you count the hours the cutter spends in the steel annealed wins. The steel is softer so you can push harder. But a die block is not finished when roughing ends. It still has to go out for hardening, come back, be ground or EDM’d to size, and sometimes be corrected because it moved. Count all of that, and a pre-hardened block such as P20 or P20+Ni often reaches a finished tool sooner. We have been supplying tool and die steels since 1957, and this is one of the oldest debates in any toolroom. Here is how we would think it through, using the hardness figures from our own product pages. Pre-Hardened vs Annealed Die Blocks in One Minute Annealed die blocks arrive soft. They cut quickly and go easy on tools, but they must be hardened and tempered after machining. H13 ...
