In hot forging, H13 and conventional tool steels soften and fail at the temperatures the job demands. Foundation Alloy’s molybdenum tooling doesn’t.
Above 550°C, H13 loses hardness as its carbide strengthening breaks down with each thermal cycle. The dies heat-check, crack, drift out of tolerance, and they get reground and replaced before the run is done.
Higher temperatures, harder workpieces, and tighter tolerances have pushed conventional tool steels past their limit.
Foundation Alloy’s molybdenum tooling has demonstrated 10x less temper softening and 4x better crack resistance than tool steels. It maintains hardness and dimensional accuracy through repeated thermal cycling, and it operates up to 1,000°C.
The tooling alloy (MC-X) is currently available for validation programs and early customer engagements.
Target properties:
Up to 5-10x vs. H13 at temperature. 10x less temper softening and 4x better crack resistance means fewer failures and fewer replacements.
Lower thermal expansion and higher conductivity reduce dimensional drift, providing less variability and less scrap.
MC-X’s high-temperature properties open the design space above 550°C, enabling harder feedstock alloys and tighter geometries than H-13 allows.
Higher thermal conductivity keeps die temperatures more uniform, reducing the need for additional cooling between shots.
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