Don't take our word for it — read what customers say.

We ran a full order of 60,000 parts and still didn't need to sharpen. Normally we have to resharpen after 10,000 — 6× more parts than before. The coating far exceeded my expectations. It takes 8 hours to remove tools from the press and resharpen them. Saving 6 sharpenings saves 48 hours of labor.

Don Richardson — Cutting Tool Customer

I just want to say that your Alpha coating is amazing. Some blocks you Alpha-coated for me over a year ago are still looking great. Never picks up any base metal and even with minimal lubricant, we can wipe 3/8″ thick, grade 80, hot rolled into a tight channel. We used to polish a few times a run. Now, with the Alpha coating, we have never had to polish, we use less lubricant, and have a better looking product. I will continue to use Alpha over any of the competitor's coatings due to the durability, price, and your turnaround.

Chris — Metal Forming & Punching Customer

Nearly everything we resharpen gets sent out to Surface Solutions for coatings. I had one customer that wasn't using coatings and now that he's tried it, he wants everything coated. His tools are working better than new. It's like night and day.

Tony Deschenes — Owner, Special Tools, Inc. (St. Francis, MN)

I am continually surprised at how much longer the Alpha coating delays basic sharpening. My guess is that 15 million parts have been made. They punch thru .057″ galvanized steel with a good lubricant. I used to sharpen my uncoated D2 punches every 3 weeks. I have been switching over all die parts from D2 to M4 and then sending for the Alpha coating. Thanks, Surface Solutions, for reducing my workload and increasing productivity as the dies all run longer without any basic maintenance.

Anonymous Customer — Punching / Progressive Dies

The stainless steel valve balls that were Alpha-coated are still going strong after 4 months… we used to only get 2–3 weeks out of them.

Missouri Customer — Abrasive Material Processing

The Alpha coating that was utilized last time for these small parts worked great. I was very pleased with the result as it greatly increased the part life. I was able to make 500 passes using the scratch testing equipment and saw no visible degradation of the coating under our microscope — in comparison, the chrome plating showed visible signs of wear after only 100 passes.

Minnesota Customer — Abrasive-Material Probe Tips

In a drawing application (stainless steel), the Alpha-coated tooling only produced 15 parts and the parts were too hot to touch. Putting CrN on the tool resulted in over 500 parts, with the parts being just warm to the touch.

Sheet Metal Forming Customer

Alpha cutters are amazing! And I hear AlTiN can only get better… Either way, we are going to ship you a huge set to get processed asap. Kirk is thinking that these cutters just eliminated an entire process to the current one we have to do. We are actually amazed at how much time this is saving on that process. Makes me wonder what else we are doing the hard way.

Angela Naasz — CFO, K&C Manufacturing