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good source for L6?
- Thread starter GHEzell
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You can order it online from Admiral Steel. Now I must say that some people who have used it have said that do not think it is true L6. They have had problems with it. With luck someone around here will speak up that has used it. I have no idea myself, that is just what I have read. Here is a link to Admiral.
http://www.admiralsteel.com/products/blades.html
http://www.admiralsteel.com/products/blades.html
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I tested some Admiral L6 about 3 weeks ago. The stuff I tested does not have the same hardening curves that the Crucible L6 that I work with has. The chemistry presented appears the same but...
After normalizing Crucible L6 will have an HRC of 61, the sample I had from Admiral was 23HRC after the same treatment. The good news is that when properly heated and quenched the stuff from Admiral easily achieved 63.5 HRC, so it should make a good blade. I have not done any impact testing on it, and that would definitely tell whether it is L6 in any way, shape, or form. I have welded it into a billet but I have not finished it to the etching point to see if it contrasts. It welded very nicely and was easy to forge though.
Hope this helps.
After normalizing Crucible L6 will have an HRC of 61, the sample I had from Admiral was 23HRC after the same treatment. The good news is that when properly heated and quenched the stuff from Admiral easily achieved 63.5 HRC, so it should make a good blade. I have not done any impact testing on it, and that would definitely tell whether it is L6 in any way, shape, or form. I have welded it into a billet but I have not finished it to the etching point to see if it contrasts. It welded very nicely and was easy to forge though.
Hope this helps.
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I'll say it helps Kevin, I have a good bit of the Admiral L6 sitting here that I haven't worked with yet. Just curious but did you marquench the Admiral L6 samples you tried? Please keep us informed if you do any of the impact testing with it!
From what you're saying the Admiral Steel L6 doesn't air harden much at all which flies in the face of all I've heard from people who work with L6 regularly.
From what you're saying the Admiral Steel L6 doesn't air harden much at all which flies in the face of all I've heard from people who work with L6 regularly.
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Marquenching/martempering would be a very wise test to do on it, since that is one of the most attractive features of L6. The problem is that I got the sample from Rick Barret while he was visiting my shop and had some of the same questions. I have no more to work with, and am far too happy with my Crucible L6. If anybody would like to send me some small pieces, I would be more than happy to check it out.
I had far too many people tell me how they were drilling that L6 after normalizing, at which point I would stop them to say "that ain't L6". L6 stuffed in wood ash overnight will destroy any drill bit, short of diamond, that approaches it (believe me on this one, I know).
If it is as tame as it appears to be in the hardening category and still has the nickel content, Admiral is probably doing us a great favor since it would match up to 1070,1080,1084,1095 and other shallow hardeners much better for damascus, and with the thicker sections it would be nicer to work with than 15n20.
I had far too many people tell me how they were drilling that L6 after normalizing, at which point I would stop them to say "that ain't L6". L6 stuffed in wood ash overnight will destroy any drill bit, short of diamond, that approaches it (believe me on this one, I know).
If it is as tame as it appears to be in the hardening category and still has the nickel content, Admiral is probably doing us a great favor since it would match up to 1070,1080,1084,1095 and other shallow hardeners much better for damascus, and with the thicker sections it would be nicer to work with than 15n20.
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the two companies that make L6 are Crucible and Carpenter, both are excellent products, but I like Crucible for my purposes. Crucible only sells L6 in rounds, Carpenter sells in flats but only in 1/2" or larger thicknesses. Admiral is just a distributer, not a manufacturer, I have no idea what their source is for L6, because they list Crucibles chemistry, but it is in flats
, and it's bevavior does not correspond the the given chemistry.
Admirals stuff appears to be good, but if you wanted to try the others here are links to their sites, I buy steel from both and wholeheartedly recomend them:
http://www.cartech.com/
http://www.crucibleservice.com/
, and it's bevavior does not correspond the the given chemistry.Admirals stuff appears to be good, but if you wanted to try the others here are links to their sites, I buy steel from both and wholeheartedly recomend them:
http://www.cartech.com/
http://www.crucibleservice.com/
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Kevin, Crucible offers a service to analyze steel, do you know what they are charging ?......I should repeat a comment I made on swordforum - The analysis given for steels is usually the nominal composition.However the actual is always a range. In some of the tool steels there are even optional elements that can be used. In addition a mill may aim for the high side or low side of any of the elements within the range. That all means that properties, especially in the case of blades the heat treating characteristics, can be significantly different from maker to maker and from batch to batch. Buying from one source , large quantities and perfecting the heat treating for that batch if the best thing to do.
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I do not know how much Crucible charges for the service.
All steels do have ranges but those ranges tend to be greater in simple carbon and alloy steels, L6 is a tool steel. One of the distinguishing characteristics of tool steels is that they have slightly tighter specs in order to meet the demands of specific applications. Structural steels and other general applications can tolerate wider deviations. Toolmakers go with specific tool steel because it works for their particular application and they pay the big bucks to keep the mill making it within those tolerances. Things tighten down a bit more when proprietary alloys come into play, yes some elements may be dropped at the discretion of the manufacturer but the only significant difference between Champalloy (Crucible) and RDS (Carpenter) is the molybdenum. I don't think they would want to drop what makes their L6 Champalloy.
I can see the percentages changing a point or two, but in over ten years of working with Champalloy I have not found any deviations significant enough for me to notice the slightest change in its behavior (and 61HRC versus 23HRC is what I would certainly call significant).
Carpenter is better than Crucible about providing good, thorough chemistry data on the steel runs. And from studying those I have seen very little variances in what is supposed to be in the alloy. The so-called trace elements are another story
. Things that are not supposed to be there, are reaching levels that could become problematic in the alloys behavior. I would not have known it if it were not for Carpenters thoroughness in information on the chemistry, I wonder if I would have been happier not knowing.
This is not to say that Carpenter has higher levels of the unwanted stuff than the other guys, I think their steel is some of the cleanest out there, I believe they are just being more generous with the information.
All steels do have ranges but those ranges tend to be greater in simple carbon and alloy steels, L6 is a tool steel. One of the distinguishing characteristics of tool steels is that they have slightly tighter specs in order to meet the demands of specific applications. Structural steels and other general applications can tolerate wider deviations. Toolmakers go with specific tool steel because it works for their particular application and they pay the big bucks to keep the mill making it within those tolerances. Things tighten down a bit more when proprietary alloys come into play, yes some elements may be dropped at the discretion of the manufacturer but the only significant difference between Champalloy (Crucible) and RDS (Carpenter) is the molybdenum. I don't think they would want to drop what makes their L6 Champalloy.
I can see the percentages changing a point or two, but in over ten years of working with Champalloy I have not found any deviations significant enough for me to notice the slightest change in its behavior (and 61HRC versus 23HRC is what I would certainly call significant).
Carpenter is better than Crucible about providing good, thorough chemistry data on the steel runs. And from studying those I have seen very little variances in what is supposed to be in the alloy. The so-called trace elements are another story
. Things that are not supposed to be there, are reaching levels that could become problematic in the alloys behavior. I would not have known it if it were not for Carpenters thoroughness in information on the chemistry, I wonder if I would have been happier not knowing.This is not to say that Carpenter has higher levels of the unwanted stuff than the other guys, I think their steel is some of the cleanest out there, I believe they are just being more generous with the information.
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From the websites...a comparison of L6.
Crucible
Carbon 0.75%
Manganese 0.70%
Silicon 0.25%
Chromium 0.80%
Nickel 1.50%
Molybdenum 0.30%
Carpenter
Carbon .70
Manganese .35
Silicon .25
Chromium 1.00
Nickel 1.75
Molybdenum - not listed
Crucible
Carbon 0.75%
Manganese 0.70%
Silicon 0.25%
Chromium 0.80%
Nickel 1.50%
Molybdenum 0.30%
Carpenter
Carbon .70
Manganese .35
Silicon .25
Chromium 1.00
Nickel 1.75
Molybdenum - not listed
It would help if Admiral could provide a spec sheet. They must be leaving something out of the mix or the steel is completely annealed. I love L-6, but now I am scratching my head, as I have several, .25", feet of Admiral L-6. I am in the process of making repros of duelling bowies and planning on using the Admiral L-6.
Ken Beatty
Ken Beatty
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ragnoor:
From the behavior I have seen so far with the Admiral steel, I wouldn't worry about using it in a knife. As quenched 63.5 HRC is not too shabby for a good bowie. Carbon percentages can affect edge holding in the form of excess carbides, or lack of, but most folks never mess with this sort of thing anyhow. All the steel I purchase is annealed when I recieve it, the differences I am noting is after it has been heated to critical and allowed to cool. If the stuff resist impact, like L6 should, then the shallower hardening would be a blessing to folks with simpler equipment.
C L Wilkins:
Your post shows what I was saying about the moly, you will notice a deviation in the ammounts of the various alloys, as mete described. There is a wide range in which the given elements can fall and still make it "L6" this is what makes each manufactures alloy "unique". Between Carpenter and Crucible, the differences appear minute at first glance but a difference of .35% manganese can have radical affects upon heat treat behavior, but the additional chromium could make up the hardenability, but not completely. That dash of moly, however, is a HUGE difference. It will lower Ms, push the steel right over the top in deep hardening and make it keep that hardness at a higher temperature, changes all of your tempering temperatures. But these differnces are between manufacturers, while a manufacturer could get away with dropping elements or changing percentages, I don't think their high dollar customers would be very happy if suddenly all of their proceedures had to be reversed and changed to accomodate a batch of steel that is radically different from the last. I believe it is called "quality control" and it can make or break manufacturers of any product.
The confusion here is that, Admiral gives Crucibles chemistry for their L6 , yet it is in flats. Crucible does not produce L6 in flats. Now of course anybody could have a steel rolled to a different shape/dimensions and then sell it, but its behavior is not consistant with what I have experienced with Champalloy for over a decade now. Could it be Carpenter L6? Carpenter makes the stuff in flats but not less than 1/2" and the chemistry doesn't match at all.
Crucible and Carpenter are the two major manufacturers of this steel that I am aware of. Did Admiral get some L6 made up for them by some other mill? Could be.
As I have repeated here, this steel appears to work well for our purposes, the fact that it is not a duplicate of Champalloy is not a bad thing, unless your heat treatment procedure is geared towards that chemistry. If it has shock resistance, and gives a nice contrast in damascus, I would say that it has definite advantages over RDS or Champalloy for the average bladesmith. I would like to do some more testing because if it does hold up I would start working with it myself, to mix with 10XX steels.
From the behavior I have seen so far with the Admiral steel, I wouldn't worry about using it in a knife. As quenched 63.5 HRC is not too shabby for a good bowie. Carbon percentages can affect edge holding in the form of excess carbides, or lack of, but most folks never mess with this sort of thing anyhow. All the steel I purchase is annealed when I recieve it, the differences I am noting is after it has been heated to critical and allowed to cool. If the stuff resist impact, like L6 should, then the shallower hardening would be a blessing to folks with simpler equipment.
C L Wilkins:
Your post shows what I was saying about the moly, you will notice a deviation in the ammounts of the various alloys, as mete described. There is a wide range in which the given elements can fall and still make it "L6" this is what makes each manufactures alloy "unique". Between Carpenter and Crucible, the differences appear minute at first glance but a difference of .35% manganese can have radical affects upon heat treat behavior, but the additional chromium could make up the hardenability, but not completely. That dash of moly, however, is a HUGE difference. It will lower Ms, push the steel right over the top in deep hardening and make it keep that hardness at a higher temperature, changes all of your tempering temperatures. But these differnces are between manufacturers, while a manufacturer could get away with dropping elements or changing percentages, I don't think their high dollar customers would be very happy if suddenly all of their proceedures had to be reversed and changed to accomodate a batch of steel that is radically different from the last. I believe it is called "quality control" and it can make or break manufacturers of any product.
The confusion here is that, Admiral gives Crucibles chemistry for their L6 , yet it is in flats. Crucible does not produce L6 in flats. Now of course anybody could have a steel rolled to a different shape/dimensions and then sell it, but its behavior is not consistant with what I have experienced with Champalloy for over a decade now. Could it be Carpenter L6? Carpenter makes the stuff in flats but not less than 1/2" and the chemistry doesn't match at all.
Crucible and Carpenter are the two major manufacturers of this steel that I am aware of. Did Admiral get some L6 made up for them by some other mill? Could be.
As I have repeated here, this steel appears to work well for our purposes, the fact that it is not a duplicate of Champalloy is not a bad thing, unless your heat treatment procedure is geared towards that chemistry. If it has shock resistance, and gives a nice contrast in damascus, I would say that it has definite advantages over RDS or Champalloy for the average bladesmith. I would like to do some more testing because if it does hold up I would start working with it myself, to mix with 10XX steels.