March 12 to 15, 2008 – Hall 2 – Stand 201

Exactly 35 years ago, in March 1973, General Electric, USA offered for the first time a cutting agent to the manufacturers of diamond tools under the trade name of “compax”.

This material is comparable to diamond in hardness, consisted of diamond micron grain mixed with cobalt and tungsten as a binding agent, compressed under high pressure and high heat and was available in a thickness from 0.5 to 0.8 mm on carbide blanks.

Under the code name of PCD (polycrystalline synthetic diamond) this material captured its place as a cutting material for the economic processing of aluminium, wood and plastics and in the automobile, accessory industry, furniture, airplane and electronic industry as well, just to name a few major users.

LACH DIAMANT, the foremost PCD tool manufacturer had to comprehend very quickly that the grinding of PCD could not be accomplished with the know-how of a conventional natural diamond cutter.

Other technologies had to be found to tackle the tough and hard polycrystalline diamond mix and to form a cutting edge and radius which is a prerequisite for each cutting tool.

Suitable grinding machines for PCD were not available during this pioneering time in 1973.

In cooperation at that time with the machine builder Kelch, LACH DIAMANT developed a precision grinding machine which enabled the manufacturing, the service and the resharpening of polycrystalline diamond turning and milling tools.

Countless improvements flowed into the precision grinding machines, built for 2 decades by LACH DIAMANT under the description »pcd-100« (with yoke) or the »pcd-300« (with spherical head).

This conventional diamond grinding machine still fulfills requirements for small and medium series and is competitive in a price/performance ratio to CNC grinding machines. The PCD grinding machine, a technically compact “marvel” of precision, is offered by LACH DIAMANT as a PCD and CBN (cubic boron nitride) grinding machine which of course can process cutting materials such as carbide, HSS or ceramics without problems.

The limits at grinding of PCD grinding wheels with (only) diamond grinding wheels were recognized at LACH DIAMANT at about 1975 when the company started to manufacture PCD tipped rotating tools such as milling cutters and saws.

The grinding of the individual cutting edge, tooth for tooth was very time consuming and thus inefficient. The actual break through succeeded in 1978 with the development of the spark erosion process by Horst Lach.

The manufacture of PCD diamond tools, up to now considered impossible, was now made possible.

The actual victory of this new PCD cutting media was gained at the LIGNA 1979 when LACH DIAMANT offered, industrial diamonds to a surprised woodworking industry as being superior to carbide for the cutting of all derived wood (timber) products.

The indispensable PCD application in the automobile industry for the cutting/milling of aluminium or in the aviation industry as an essential cutting edge material for the processing of composites GFRP, GRP and similar would follow.

As a representation of the development, based on the discovery of spark erosion for the processing of electrically conducting PCD, LACH DIAMANT will show at the GrindTec the rotation eroding universal sharpening machine the »Dia-2100-mini« from a complete line of CNC rotation sharpening machines for all diamond tools and saws.

LACH DIAMANT grinding and sharpening machines built by the hundreds are successfully working all over the world, some for decades. The machines are built with the experience of the diamond and grinding wheel manufacturer LACH DIAMANT, now in its third generation and 85th business anniversary in 2007.