Borazon has a number of uses [clarification needed], such as: cutting tools, dies, punches, shears, knives, saw blades, bearing rings, needles, rollers, spacers, balls, pump and compressor parts, engine and drive train components (e.g. camshafts, crankshafts, gears, valve stems, drive shafts, CV joints, piston pins, fuel injectors, turbochargers, and aerospace and land-based gas turbine parts such as vanes, blades, nozzles, and seals), surgical knives, blades, scissors, honing, superfinishing, cylinder liners, connecting rods, grinding of steel and paper mill rolls, and gears.Prior to the production of Borazon, diamond was the preferred abrasive used for grinding very hard superalloys but it could not be used effectively on steels because carbon tends to dissolve in iron at high temperatures.
[3] Borazon replaced aluminium oxide for grinding hardened steels owing to its superior abrasive properties, comparable to that of diamond.
The limiting factor in the life of such tools is typically determined not by wear on the cutting surface but by its break-down and separation from the metal core resulting from failure of the bonding layer.
In Ivan Yefremov's novel Andromeda: A Space-Age Tale (written 1954–1956, published Jan 1957) boron nitride named borazon is routinely used in sublight engine parts and spaceship surface coating.
In Randall Garrett's's short story "Thin Edge" (Analog, Dec 1963)[5] a fictional borazon-tungsten cable of extraordinary tensile strength is a central plot element.