Nowadays, almost all the cutting tools in metal machining are protected with a surface treatment. Nevertheless, this is not the case in woodmachining where no tools are protected, except by thermal treatments, and so they present a previous wear because of the use of steel or carbide materials in milling, sawing, routing, etc. During these processes, the tools are particularly exposed to abrasive and shock wear. To enhance their wear resistance, one solution is to protect them with hard coatings. The present study deals with the development of ternary systems (CrAlN and CrSiN) obtained by two PVD different magnetron sputtering systems [‘A’ (laboratory where CrAlN layers have been obtained) and ‘B’ (laboratory where CrSiN layers have been obtained) in the following text] on carbide WC–Co tools used in second transformation of wood to be compared to the binary CrN one. CrAlN and CrSiN films were deposited with different Al and Si contents, respectively, in order to check the effect of the additive element (Al or Si) on the different properties of the Cr–N system. The different coatings were characterized by SEM and EDS for thickness measurements, morphology and composition analyses, respectively, by nanoindentation for hardness and Young’s modulus measurements and by pin-on-disc to determine their friction coefficient. Routing of medium density fibreboard (MDF) was realized employing untreated or modified carbide WC–Co tools in order to compare their wear resistance. We observed that the Al and the Si addition improved the hardness and the Young’s modulus of the Cr–N system (‘A’: 29 and 410 GPa, respectively, ‘B’: 18 and 280 GPa, respectively). Indeed, the hardness values are 15–36GPa for CrAlN and 15–24 GPa for CrSiN coatings. Besides, the Young’s modulus values are 331–520GPa for CrAlN and 260–320 GPa for CrSiN coatings. The friction coefficient of the CrAlN layers varied between 0.6 and 0.7 and it increased slightly with the Al content. For the CrSiN coatings, the friction coefficient was lower and about 0.4. In both cases, the CrN layers ‘A’ and ‘B’ presented similar friction coefficient than CrAlN and CrSiN, respectively. During the routing of MDF, the CrN ‘A’ coating has a similar wear behaviour than the optimized CrAlN one (5 at.% of Al) while the optimized CrSiN coating (1.2 at.% of Si) showed a better behaviour against wear than the CrN ‘B’ one. The wear resistance of CrAlN- and CrSiN-coated carbide tools ecreased when the Al and Si contents increased.