A sintered body of the present invention is a sintered body including a first material and cubic boron nitride. The first material is partially-stabilized ZrO.sub.2 including 5 to 90 volume % of Al.sub.2O.sub.3 dispersed in crystal grain boundaries or crystal grains of partially-stabilized ZrO.sub.2.

A rotary cutting method includes producing a processed product by rotary cutting of a workpiece by a rotary tool. The rotary tool has at least one cutting edge of which both of a first rake angle in a rotation radial direction and a second rake angle in a rotation axis direction are negative. The at least one cutting edge has a slanted face connected with a rake face forming the first and second rake angles. The slanted face is connected with the rake face at a ridge line. The slanted face faces a rotating direction of the rotary tool. An angle of the slanted face to the rotation axis direction is positive.

A face milling tool includes a tool body having an axial front end surface with several seats. Each seat has support surfaces for rotationally locking and supporting a tangential cutting insert in the seat. One of the support surfaces is a flat axial support surface for supporting the tangential cutting insert in an axial direction defined by the central rotation axis. The flat axial support surface extends perpendicular to the central rotation axis and is situated axially foremost in the seat. A side wall of each seat is formed out of round side support surfaces. Each tangential cutting insert includes an axial back side with a flat axial contact surface abutting the flat axial support surface and a projecting member extending axially from the flat axial contact surface and having a circumferential side surface forming out of round side contact surfaces abutting the out of round side support surfaces.

A solid carbide milling cutter has a substrate of hard metal and a multi-layer coating deposited at least to surface regions that contact a workpiece during a milling operation. The multi-layer coating includes a single-layer or a multi-layer functional layer deposited directly on the substrate surface and a single-layer or a multi-layer covering layer deposited on the functional layer. The functional layer has one or more layers of Ti.sub.xAl.sub.1-xN with 0.3x0.55. The covering layer has one or more layers of ZrN. The functional layer and the covering layer are deposited by HIPIMS, wherein during the deposition of the functional layer power pulses are applied to each sputtering target consisting of material to be deposited, which power pulses transfer an amount of energy to each sputtering target that exceeds a maximum power density in the pulse of 500 W/cm.sup.2.

A face milling tool includes a tool body having an axial front end surface with several seats. Each seat has support surfaces for rotationally locking and supporting a tangential cutting insert in the seat. One of the support surfaces is a flat axial support surface for supporting the tangential cutting insert in an axial direction defined by the central rotation axis. The flat axial support surface extends perpendicular to the central rotation axis and is situated axially foremost in the seat. A side wall of each seat is formed out of round side support surfaces. Each tangential cutting insert includes an axial back side with a flat axial contact surface abutting the flat axial support surface and a projecting member extending axially from the flat axial contact surface and having a circumferential side surface forming out of round side contact surfaces abutting the out of round side support surfaces.

Disclosed is a tool for processing an engine block. The tool for processing the engine block includes: multiple cutting inserts; and main cutting edges which are formed at end portions of the inserts, respectively, in which the main cutting edge has a positive axial inclination angle and a radial inclination angle of 5 degrees to 0 degree.

A milling cutter is composed of a tool body having an approximately cylindrical or disk-like shape and a plurality of edge portions provided on at least an outer peripheral portion of one end of the tool body at predetermined intervals along a circumferential direction. The edge portion has a major cutting edge and a minor cutting edge that perform an operation of cutting a workpiece, the major cutting edge is positioned outside the minor cutting edge in a radial direction, and the minor cutting edge has a cutting edge angle that is an angle with respect to a plane orthogonal to a center axis of the tool body and set so as to be an elevation angle open outward in the radial direction. When surface machining is performed on a workpiece with the milling cutter, a high degree of machined surface accuracy equivalent to that obtained by grinding is obtained.

A sintered body of the present invention is a sintered body including a first material and cubic boron nitride. The first material is partially-stabilized ZrO.sub.2 including 5 to 90 volume % of Al.sub.2O.sub.3 dispersed in crystal grain boundaries or crystal grains of partially-stabilized ZrO.sub.2.

A solid carbide milling cutter has a substrate of hard metal and a multi-layer coating deposited at least to surface regions that contact a workpiece during a milling operation. The multi-layer coating includes a single-layer or a multi-layer functional layer deposited directly on the substrate surface and a single-layer or a multi-layer covering layer deposited on the functional layer. The functional layer has one or more layers of Ti.sub.xAl.sub.1-xN with 0.3x0.55. The covering layer has one or more layers of ZrN. The functional layer and the covering layer are deposited by HIPIMS, wherein during the deposition of the functional layer power pulses are applied to each sputtering target consisting of material to be deposited, which power pulses transfer an amount of energy to each sputtering target that exceeds a maximum power density in the pulse of 500 W/cm.sup.2.