Patent ID: 7744056

Claim:
A hard-material-coated member with an excellent durability comprising a metal as base material and having coating layers formed at least on its working plane by physical vapor deposition, wherein at least three layers, i.e., a layer a as the outermost layer, a layer c just above the base material and a layer b between the layer a and the layer c are formed as the coating layers, where each of the three layers a, b and c contains a compound composed mainly of a metal common to the three layers; the hardness values of these layers in terms of hardness symbol HV 0.025 are as follows: 2500>(the hardness of the layer a)>1000, 3500>(the hardness of the layer b)>2300, 2500>(the hardness of the layer c)>1000, (500+the hardness of the layer a)<(the hardness of the layer b), and (500+the hardness of the layer c)<(the hardness of the layer b); the thickness of the layer b is smaller than that of the layer c; and the total thickness of the coating layers is 5 to 15 μm.