In Episode 205 of Cliff’s Notes, Tungco CEO Cliff Nance sits down with Bryan Mills of CP Carbide — a California-based, three-generation family business that has been sourcing and supplying tungsten carbide wear parts since 1995. It’s a wide-open conversation about where the tungsten market is, where it’s going, and what it means when a family that has built its entire business around carbide starts looking for alternatives.
■ Watch Episode 205 on YouTube
The CP Carbide Story
Bryan’s father made a connection at a Chinese tungsten factory in 1988, which eventually led the family to close their California machine shop in 1995 and pivot to full-time carbide importing and distribution. What started as two people — dad selling, Bryan running the operation — grew into a company that now qualifies with major OEMs and manufactures wear parts for mining, ground engagement, and snow removal applications.
One of CP Carbide’s defining traits is their private-label model. Most of their product ships under a customer’s brand, not CP Carbide’s. As Bryan puts it: if the customer’s name is on the box, the part better perform. That constraint has driven a quality culture built entirely on trust and repeat business — with the third generation, Logan and Evan, now coming into the fold.
The Tungsten Market: Quotes Expiring in 24 Hours
The most striking moment in this episode is Bryan’s description of current tungsten pricing conditions: quotes can’t be held for longer than a day or two. The only historical parallel he can find is World War Two — a period when tungsten demand for military applications was virtually unlimited. Most people in the industry today have no reference point for what they’re experiencing.
The driver is China shifting from an export-oriented economy to one that consumes its tungsten domestically. That structural change, combined with export controls, has created a supply environment that isn’t correcting — and Bryan’s father has been warning about this for 20 years. There is only so much tungsten in the ground.
PCD, the Critical Minerals Vault, and What Comes Next
CP Carbide is actively exploring alternatives. Bryan points to polycrystalline diamond (PCD) as an increasingly viable option — historically too expensive to justify in wear applications, but with tungsten prices climbing, the gap is closing. The challenge is system-level: a PCD cutting edge that lasts three to four years still has to be supported by a steel carrier that can handle the same abuse.
On the policy side, Bryan confirms that tungsten is expected to be included in the administration’s critical minerals vault — a price floor mechanism designed to make Western mining viable without the risk of China undercutting the market to kill it. Whether it holds, and how the material gets allocated across competing industries, remains an open and consequential question.
