This tendency is most marked in austenitic stainless steels, although both ferritic and ferritic-austenitic steels give rise to chip sticking and built-up edges on the cutting tool.
The formation of a built-up edge results in a poor surface finish on the work piece and very high stresses on the cutting edge. The formation of a built-up edge can often result in failure of the cutting edge, resulting in tool failure.
Formation of a built-up edge and chip sticking can also occur when machining ordinary structural steels and other carbon steels, although in such cases (as opposed to the stainless steels) it is often sufficient to increase the cutting speed in order to get out of the built-up edge range. When machining stainless steels it can, in certain cases, be difficult to find a cutting speed range where built-up edge formation does not occur.