Although tungsten carbide is a very hard material (150 Rockwell), it is also very brittle so any plunging or stabbing action may cause the teeth to crack and disintegrate. This is true of any carbide cutters such as router bits, general tooling, and saw blades.
Tungsten Teeth can be damaged (or broken) for several reasons including the following:
- Working the cutter too vigorously such that the user ‘drops’ the cutter into/onto the surface of the wood rather than using a lighter starting cut. More pressure may be applied once the cutter has landed on the surface of the wood.
- To avoid breakage, and to ensure that the screws are easy to unlock when they need to be rotated or replaced, it is important before every use (and every few hours during use) to unplug the grinder and unlock each screw, The felt (small piece of felt fixed against the revolving cam) must be and re-tighten. This ensures that the teeth are firmly secured.
IMPORTANT: Unlock and re-tighten the screws regularly.