The life of loaded machine elements and the vital parts of tools can be successfully extended by systematic maintenance and the timely repair of damaged surfaces. It has been proved that with the regular maintenance of tool parts the cost of the tool in the price of a finished product can be considerably reduced. It is a very economical practise to manufacture certain parts from low-cost, tough structural steel on which a layer of wear-resistant alloy has been surfaced. In such a case the volume fraction of the surfaced layer is usually much lower than 10% of the total volume of the tool or the machine element. In this paper, we report some of our latest results involving comparative studies of repair surfacing on maraging steel and the cladding of common structural steel with a Ni-Co-Mo alloy similar to the maraging steel using a laser process and submerged-arc surfacing. The results are based on micro-structural and micro-chemical analyses of the surfaced layer and are supported by analyses of the micro-hardness and the residual stresses, carried out on suitably adapted flat specimens. (C) 2002 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.