In order to improve the wear resistance of traditional coating tools, two kinds of advanced cutting tools which can be re
ground have been developed with ceramic coated powders by the sol-gel and hot pressing technology. A suitable set of coating and sintering technology was optimized. The titanium matrix coating tools XFTC1 fabricated from TiC powders coated with double phase alumina silicon dioxide sol and XFTC2 fabricated from TiC powders coated with single phase silicon dioxide sol are prepared. A scanning electron microscope (SEM) observation reveals that, in general the matrix (TiC) grains are uniformly coated with the alumina silicon dioxide or the silicon dioxide ceramic and the microstructure of the new tool materials is more homogeneous than that of conventionally made ceramics. The tests of mechanical properties and wear resistance in machining are finally conducted. It is shown that when compared with a hard coated carbide tool, the new material XFTC1 with double phase alumina silicon dioxide coating exhibits a superior ability in maintaining the wear resistance during the entire tool life. When machining a mild carbon steel the new tool materials can increase the tool life by up to 100% as compared to a
ceramic tool materials that has the same matrix but fabricated in the conventional way, while the fracture toughness and bending strength are improved by up to 69～86% and 5～15% respectively.