CoatingIQ

Free · vendor-neutral · every claim cited

Surface treatment intelligence for the people who run tools.

Coatings, nitriding, and surface hardening — explained for the operators, engineers, and reps who actually spec and run treated tools. Interactive tools, deep courses, and a reference where every number traces to a cited source. No metallurgy degree required. No vendor pitch.

Open the PVD ExplorerBrowse the courses

The interactive way in

Don't read a coating spec sheet. Explore it.

Pick a PVD coating and see how its hardness, heat limit, and friction actually compare — as honest ranges, with the sources one click away.

Titanium Nitride

TiN · First-generation monolayer PVD hard coating (gold-colored benchmark)

gold (gold-yellow / metallic gold)
Hardnesshigher = harder2,300HV
range 2,000–3,000medium confidence
Max service temphigher = more heat550C
range 450–600medium confidence
Friction vs steellower = slicker0.6dimensionless
range 0.6 · steel / 100Cr6, dry, unlubricated (ball-on-disc, ASTM G99)medium confidence

Thickness

1–5 um

Deposition temp

400–500 C

Typically chosen for

  • Wear protection on cutting tools (drills, taps, milling cutters, inserts)
  • Forming, stamping and fine-blanking tooling
  • Plastic injection molding components
  • Decorative gold finish and medical/food-contact parts (biocompatible, inert)

These are general process properties for understanding tradeoffs — not a specification for your application. Real selection needs a coating house with your substrate, geometry, and duty data. Values are ranges because real coatings vary by process and supplier; the bright marker is the typical value, the band is the published spread.

Open the full explorer — with notes & sources

Start by topic

Four ways into surface treatment

Coatings (PVD)

Reference + tool

TiN, TiAlN, AlCrN, CrN, ZrN, DLC — the thin-film ceramics. Compare hardness, heat, and friction in the Explorer.

Open

Nitriding

Course

Gas, salt-bath, plasma, FNC — diffusion hardening for tool & die. Spec it, QC it, read the failure modes.

Open

Case hardening

Course

Carburizing, carbonitriding, and the fundamentals of putting a hard case on a tough core.

Open

Die & tooling

Courses

Building and running forge dies — steel selection, treatment sequencing, and keeping a die alive on the floor.

Open

Go deep

Four courses, substrate to surface

  1. 01

    Surface Treating Basics

    A working operator's intro to coatings, heat treatment, and surface hardening for tool-and-die. Vendor-neutral and source-cited.

  2. 02

    Nitriding for Tool & Die

    The deep dive. Twelve lessons on spec'ing, QC'ing, and reading the failure modes of nitrided tooling — gas, salt-bath, plasma, FNC.

  3. 03

    Forge Die Building

    Thirteen lessons on building forge dies from blank stock: die steel selection, cavity design, heat treatment, surface treatment sequencing, and clean vendor handoff. For tool builders and die designers.

  4. 04

    Running Forge Dies

    Thirteen lessons on keeping a die alive on the production floor: pre-heat, lubrication, inspection cadence, diagnostic workflow, maintenance options, and the operator habits that double die life.

Why trust this

Vendor-neutral. Every number cited.

No vendor pitch

We explain the processes and tradeoffs. We don't spec a coating for your part — that needs a real coating house with your data.

Sourced, as ranges

Every value is a cited range, not a marketing number, because real coatings vary. Where sources disagree, we show it.

Archived provenance

Each source is snapshotted and dated, so a claim stays auditable even if the original page changes or disappears.

Take it with you

Get the PDF — or talk to a specialist

Drop your email for the full reference as a PDF. Stuck on a real part that's failing? Tell us what's happening — a person, not a bot, will point you in the right direction.

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An AI you can ask about any of this is coming.

Prefer to read offline? Download the full course PDF