Diamond tool

In Natural History, Pliny wrote "When an adamas is successfully broken it disintegrates into splinters so small as to be scarcely visible.

These are much sought after by engravers of gems and are inserted by them into iron tools because they make hollows in the hardest materials without difficulty.

"[1] Diamond is one of the hardest natural materials on earth; much harder than corundum and silicon carbide.

These applications include coatings on bearings and CDs, acting as lens and thermistors, making high-voltage switches and sensors, etc.

Diamond dressers consist of single-point or multipoint tools brazed to a steel shank, and used for the trueing and dressing of grinding wheels.

Often they are EDM machined and/or ground an additional time to expose the vein of diamond along the cutting edge.

For example, according to Modern Machine Shop,[citation needed] the combination allows a higher material removal rate and is therefore more cost effective.

The Beijing Institute of Electro-Machining[citation needed] attributes a finer shaping and surface geometry to the combination of the two processes into one.

They are ideal for speed machining (9000 surface feet per minute or higher) in tough and abrasive aluminum alloys, and high-abrasion processes such as carbon-fiber drilling and ceramics.

The single crystalline diamond can be natural or synthetic, and is sharpened to the desired dimensions by mechanical grinding and polishing.

SPDT is a very accurate machining process, used to create finished aspherical and irregular optics without the need for further polishing after completion.