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When a re-sharpening program starts, it’s a little like a snake swallowing a mouse. In the first month of the example, 150 re-sharpened mills replace 112 new ones. By Month 5, the snake straightens out to a normal run rate, with 138 re-sharpened mills replacing 95 new mills. There is a 48% reduction in use of new carbide mills (95/200) and 12% overall cost savings.

Re-sharpening also results in a much lower CO2 footprint; it takes way less energy to re-sharpen than to manufacture from scratch, less than 2%. It also reduces the demand for newly mined tungsten, 85% of which comes from China.

One interesting point from the analysis—not shown here—is that little cost savings result from re-sharpening twice, $152/mo in this example, less than 1%. In that instance, 96 re-sharpened-once mills and 128 new mills replace the 200 new. However, the use of new carbide rises substantially and the CO2 footprint even more.

Also noted and not shown, was that doubling the market price of scrap carbide had minimal effect on the savings percentages, similar to the small second re-sharpening effect.

Our example, detailed below and graphed above, assumes that 75% of 200 new end mills will be in condition to be re-sharpened and the re-sharpened mills will wear 75% as long as new ones. That calculates to 56% recoverable usage from the first re-sharpening (0.75 x 0.75).

Turnaround less than 4 weeks—with coating

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