1 Carbon Steels. Carbon steels have been used since the 1880s for cutting tools.
2 High Speed Steel (HSS) HSS tools are so named because they were developed to cut at higher speeds.
3 Cast Cobalt Alloys.
4 Carbides.
5 Coatings.
6 Cermets.
7 Ceramics –
8 Cubic Boron Nitride (cBN)