Laminating stainless

Knifemaker87

Knifemaker87

Joined
Jan 2, 2006
Messages
1,073
hey everybody,
i read Burt Foster's Thread about laminating stainless, and would like to give it a try, but i dont have any 52100 steel. So i was thinking about using L6 as the core instead. would that work? is there a specific reason that 52100 is used?
thanks
~Chris
 
Not neccsarily. I've used 1084 and W2 for the core. I think you will have better contrast w/ these than L6 w/ the nickle.

Shawn
 
Do you have a link to the original thread? I would like to read it. Thanks.
 
I just saw the blade from that thread at the Smokey Mountain hammer in... awesome piece of work. I can't wait to learn this process. I also met Burt and he is one hell of a guy.
 
although you can use most anything you will have the best luck using o-1 or 1084 or 5160. harden for the core. 416 will give you a spring hardness with a soak and oil quench when hardening for the o-1.
 
Ed Caffrey did a nice one - his commentary and photos from that post on Knife Dogs


http://www.knifedogs.com/showthread.php?t=2963

I've always said that just about anything you can put into a "can", you can weld. Brian was talking on our chat one night about watching this weld being done at an ABS event by tack welding the pieces together, then wrapping the billet in several layers of heat treat foil.

I simply took the tack welding one step further. I started out with one piece of 1/8"X 1" 1084, and two pieces of 1/4" X 1" 416. I surface ground the mating faces to 400 grit, layered it up with the 1084 in the center, clamped it tightly and then MIG welded all the way around, essentially making the 416 the "can". No flux, just into the forge at 2350F for about 12 mins., then through the press, and then another heat and under the flat dies of the air hammer to thin it down. I annealed it and then stock removed a blade from the billet. I found that there are a number of "quirks" to this construction, in that it does not anneal or normalize like a straight steel blade would....in fact in order to get it soft enough to file the guard shoulders I had to put it in my heat treat oven at 1425F, let it soak for 5 mins, and allow it to cool down overnight in the oven. Other issues came up during the construction/finishing too, but just had to deal with them as they arose.

I did not intentionally leave any air hole(s), however, I'm a poor enough MIG welder that there was likely a pin hole somewhere. I think the big key here is soak time. Since this one I have welded two more billets the same way. The last two I have used 1/8" cores, and 1/4" 416.....I liked the end results better than using 1/4" throughout.

I used my salt tank, at 1550F, with no soak, then quenched in Parks #50 at room temp. Temper was 3 cycles at 415F. That may or may not change, as there is still more experimenting that I want to do with this type of blade to get the best possible performance.


416Hunterleftside.jpg


416SanMaiBlade.jpg
 
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