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The tungsten carbide handbook
The tungsten carbide handbook is 15 short pages in five groups: what carbide is made of, how it behaves, how it compares, where it is used, and how to handle it and what moves its price. A family business that buys carbide writes it, and when you have some to sell you can ask for a quote from any page.
How it is made
From tungsten ore to a sintered part
Grades and binders
Cobalt content, grain size and what a grade tells you
Tungsten carbide powder
What the powder is, how it is used and how to handle it
Hardness
How hard it is, how it is measured, and the toughness it trades for it
Density and the weight check
Weigh and measure a piece, and see whether it reads like carbide
Is it conductive?
Electricity and heat: how carbide carries both
Melting point and heat
Where it melts, where it starts to oxidize, and what that means at the tool edge
Tungsten vs tungsten carbide
A metal and a ceramic compound, and how to tell them apart
Carbide vs HSS
Carbide and high-speed steel side by side
Where it is used
Cutting, mining, drilling and wear parts
Carbide drill bits
Solid carbide, carbide tipped, and what wears them out
Coatings
Coatings on carbide tools, and carbide as a coating
Is it toxic?
Solid pieces, dust and the cobalt in the binder
Price and the tungsten market
What moves the price of tungsten, and so of carbide
Glossary
The words on a carbide label, a quote or a datasheet
Where to start
Start with the question in front of you, not at page one. A coffee can of unmarked pieces is a job for the density and weight check, which tells you whether a piece weighs like carbide or like steel.
If someone has called a part tungsten when they meant tungsten carbide, tungsten vs tungsten carbide sorts the two out. A grade code or a cobalt percentage on a box label is explained under grades and binders.
Any word that stops you, from binder to sintering, has a short entry in the glossary. Property values move with the grade, so the pages give ranges and say what moves them, and each number carries its source at the end of its section.
Why a carbide buyer writes a handbook
In 2025, most of the tungsten used in the United States went into carbide, and carbide is the material we buy. The US Geological Survey's Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026 estimates that about 60% of the tungsten consumed in the United States in 2025 went into cemented carbide parts for cutting and wear, mainly in construction, metalworking, mining and oil and gas drilling.
Cemented carbide is the industry's name for hard carbide grains, mainly tungsten carbide (WC), held together by a tough metal binder such as cobalt, nickel or iron. Its scrap goes back into production too: the International Tungsten Industry Association (ITIA) puts tungsten's recycling rate at around 35% on its supply page, read in November 2026, and it measures that rate as the share of scrap in the metal going into production.
Our hope is that a reader who knows what they are holding can describe it clearly, because a clearly described lot is easier to quote. When you have carbide to sell, send a rough weight and a few photos, or read how to sell tungsten carbide by shipping or pickup.
Sources: USGS Mineral Commodity Summaries 2026: Tungsten; ITIA: Supply and circularity; ITIA: Cemented carbides.
Questions people ask
Who writes the tungsten carbide handbook?
Carbide Buyer US, a family owned and operated business that buys tungsten carbide in any form, and exotic metals and alloys as well. The about page says more.
Does the business sell carbide, tools or powder?
No. The business only buys, so nothing in the handbook is a product listing. The pages explain the material, and the buying offer sits beside them.
Have tungsten carbide to sell?
Tell us what form it is in and about how much it weighs, and add a few photos. Ship it from any state and we pay the shipping, or we pick up anywhere in California, Arizona and Nevada.