L6 steel

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gshamr

Joined
Jan 18, 2002
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I might as well post my other question now.

Why doesn't anyone make large knives and short swords out of L6 steel? The only knife I've seen is on Larry Harley's website.

I've read references to it that make it sound like one of the toughest steels out there for hard use/impact resistance. It also looks fairly cheap on Admiral Steel's site.

Is it the corrosion resistance? Is edge retention poor? Does anyone else use it?

Finally, is it an oil quench steel?

Thanks,
Gerald Hamrick
 
L6 is an oil quench steel and Howard Clark makes some mean katanas from it that take a lot of punishment. I don't know why it isn't used more off hand. Seems like a perfect candidate for a short sword or large camp knife. I've made a few knives from saw blade steel (may or may not be L6) that have excellent edge retension and toughness.
 
I'm probably the wrong person to reply to this thread. I have
never forged a blade. I do however, own a knife of L6. It is my
understanding that L6 is one of the toughest steels and holds a good edge. It is and it does. The down side, if there is one, is the fact that it is hard for the maker to anneal. So L6 may not be as user friendly as 5160 for heat treating. I like it. Of course, in some ways, I'm like Will Rogers. I havn't met too many knife steels that I don't like.
 
Thanks for all the info.

I might order some from Admiral steel to make some short swords. I'll have to find someone to do the heat treat. I planned on using Texas Knifemakers Supply for my A2 stuff, but they only do air cooled steels.
 
L6 is my absolut favorite carbon steel. It was one of the first steels that I had access to and even though I have tried every type of steel that I could lay my hands on to constuct knives, I seem to always come back to L6. Most of my knives today are ground from ATS 34 or one of the other popular air hardening alloy's but when a customer want's a knife from carbon steel, I will suggest L6. Having used it for quite some time, I am comfortable with heat treating it in house and the results have been predictable and consistant. I have found that this steel seems to perform better for me than almost any other, although it does rust easily and needs to be properly cared for. On occasions when I forge a blade or make Damascus from this alloy, I have found that it scales badly and seems a little stiffer under the hammer than other steels that I have used, but this is something that I have learned to live with. The supply of L6 that I have is in the form of old saw blades, some as much as 100 years old , to the best of my knowledge. All of these have been tested to insure that the steel falls within certain peramaters to insure that my heat treating results are the same. I have yet to try the steel from Admiral, but probably will when my current supply is used up.
 
You sold me on L6. I will need to find someone to heat treat it for me in the future. If a large blade (9-12") of L6 is not differentially tempered, will it still hold up well to stress?

Also. Anyone know another supplier that has more variety of widths and thicknesses than Admiral Steel?
 
I like L6 also. Playin 52100 now that Sheffield
has it, an thinking about given S7 a try again
 
GAHAMR, You have plenty of L-6 in your back yard. For many years I made a lot of knives from the old two-man drag saws. You can find them in just about any of the old second hand antique shops in you area. The last ones I bought came out of just such a shop in Issaqua. You will either have to anneal the pieces or expect to spend a bunch of time and materials shaping blades from them. If you keep them cool while you work them and they were worked hardened before the loggers hung them up, you won't have to heat treat at all. A lot of drill bits have met their demise on that stuff. You can spot anneal before drilling. LOL. Terry
 
I am impressd by the testimonies here of the L6.

I have a question of you L6 proponents. I notice that O1 is real bad about leaving dark spots on the blade after washing the knife. Even if I am quick about it it will still leave dicolorization. Does the L6 suffer from this? I do realize it is not stainless and must be dryed quickly.

Thanks; Roger
 
A2,is not air cooled,I thought it was.I know it is in some of the same leage with D2 but has less chrome?Paul Bos does HT for A2
I do no think he dose oil quench steels.or am I wrong???:confused:
 
I am now making a hatchet and a Kukri out of L 6 very impressed with the edge holding. Chopped a oak 4x4 with the hatchet and could still shave. I like!
 
L-6 Sword Howard Clark

My experience with L-6 has actually been *OSB. Some has been great stuff and some had terrible alloy banding and cracked horribly. Even after tempering.
I have a blade that a friend of mine made from OSB, he torch cut the blade without annealing and ground past the heat affected zone and made a knife from it. Good stuff, used it to cut a fender away from a truck I wrecked. Just touched up the edge on a stone afterward.

sword steels

* Old Saw Blades
 
Kevin Cashen also makes some awesome short (and long) swords from L6. Tim Zowada also makes some great L6 pieces. Both say this is their absolute favorite for a blade that will be called on to chop/take impact (they choose O1 for a shorter blade that will only need to cut).

And saw blades are not always L6. And even L6 from different sources--Carpenter and Crucible come to mind--has pretty different specs. Just something to think about.

John
 
I was impressed by the link to Howard Clark's swords. It shows L-6 standing up to some real abuse.
 
gshamr

I got about 10-12 ft. of bandsaw blade (10 inch wide, about 1/16 inch thick) from a "saw doctor" for free. They service a local saw mill. They throw out lots of the stuff each month. There ought to be enough in one blade (loop is about 25 ft. total) that one can tune one's process to the material. It also helps that there is really only one supplier of the stuff here in New Zealand (Sandvik) so they were able to send me the specs (equivalent to AISI 1074). I cut half way through the stuff using a cut-off wheel in an angle grinder, snapped the pieces apart, then annealed it in the heat-treat oven at work.

The metal did darken when first used on acidic foods (I made a kitchen knife). The patina stabilized after a few weeks of use. It would "stain" some foods, like onions, at first but I think that has stopped now.

Hope this helps. Have fun.

Phil
 
Howard's L6 swords take a lot of abuse partially because he heat treats them so that the back of the sword is bainite and the edge is tempered martensite.
 
Steven Roos said:
I've been thinking of making a machette out of L-6! :D

I think it would be awesome!
Click to expand...
Making one right now. Excited to see how it holds up. I’ve done some L6 Bowies and they are tough as hell. My only knock is the don’t hold the finest edge but for something like a machete that doesn’t really matter, main thing is it doesn’t chip roll or break easily.
 
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