L6 best quench medium

rotor

rotor

Joined
Mar 18, 1999
Messages
184
ive read Bob engleth's stuff on heat treating he recommends water or brine i got this off the web page butb there was no reference for the quench medium temprature it also stateed that there was no requirement to temper is this correct.
 
Hey Rotor, in my limited experience I've had good luck with plain vegetable oil. David Boye advocated olive oil. I have wondered about the blurb on the Engnath site about not tempering L6. What's up with that, does anyone know??? Most sources I have use a tempering regimen like most other carbon
steels. What does Michael use to quench his L6 knives and what is his tempering temp.?-Guy Thomas
 
From what I've read and been told by many makers, water or brine for L6 would be WAY too fast.

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Danbo, soul brother of Rambo
 
Michael uses Rob Simonich for heat treating blades!
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Heat treating is sooo much more complicated than just heatin the blade and dousing it. If you want to make a good blade for your customers, either come up with the pertinent info and equipment to do it right or let the pros handle it. The heat treat is what makes the knife!

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Take care!! Michael

Always think of your fellow knife makers as partners in the search for the perfect blade, not as people trying to compete with you and your work!
http://www.nebsnow.com/L6steel
Buzzards gotta eat, same as worms!!!
 
I believe that L6STEEL prefers a good budweiser as a quench medium for his thirst. Temperature? Duh! COLD!

Although us Canadians have Molson Canadian Ice which is my preferred quench medium, but then again, this wasn't about me, it was about Mike!

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"Come What May..."
 
Actually heat treating most non stainless steels is relatively simple, and essentially they are just "heated and dunked" so to speak. An even heat to critcal and then a quench in a medium such as vegetable oil heated to around 130-140 degrees and tempering draws, in the case of L6 at 450 degrees for a Rockwell of 60 and 500 degrees for a Rockwell of 58. I haven't heat treated enough knives to be confident of my results but I don't think it would take long if you have a reliable heat source, such as a forge. Of course we didn't talk about annealing and normalizing which need to be addressed bfore heat treating also. My 2 cents worth anyway.-Guy Thomas
 
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