Effect of surface finishing such as sand-blasting and CrAlN hard coatings on the cutting edge's peeling tools’ wear resistance

The aim of this study is first to define the effect of a surface finishing such as sand-blasting on the geometry of a wood cutting tool and its wear resistance. In addition, the effectiveness of surface coatings like CrAlN deposited by physical vapor deposition (PVD) technique on conventional and sand-blasted cutting edges was studied. A reference tool and different sand-blasted ones were tested by micro-peeling of beech in a laboratory. Microscopic observations, cutting forces measurement and cutting wear tests were carried out to quantify the behaviour of these tools. The results obtained showed that the artificial wear by sand-blasting leads to an increase in the wear resistance and coating effectiveness, and completely changes the type of damage done to the tools. The sand-blasting application combined or not with CrAlN coating showed an improvement in the wear resistance of the tools and a modification of the forces during the peeling process. The effectiveness of the CrAlN layers was improved thanks to the sand-blasting treatment and then the duplex ones performed better.