Opinions on L6 steel?

[cbach8tw]

Since I could not any clues to the maker of a knife/mountain man knife butcher knife I bought, can anyone tell me about their experience using L6 steel? I had always heard it could be a bear to sharpen, but it also depends on the tempering. The steel I believe was used for circular saws in the 19th century, thus the tough to sharpen idea. Please if anyone also knows about custom makers in North Carolina, I would appreciate a site or info where to research my newly acquired knife. Makers intials are "LW" in script., and the knife has curly maple scales, not fancy but alot like the old trade knives.

 

[muzzleup]

Very tough and rusts like hell.
Used for large sawmill saw blades and Gerber used to use it for their early MKII blades.

ciao4now
Ron

 

[Jeff Clark]

Plenty of saw mill blades are still being made with L6 (or close equivalent) up this day. Some people just cut out their blade shape and grind out an edge without rehardening the steel. That comes out tough, but rather soft. You get better performance if you run it through a normal heat, quench and temper.

I have had trouble getting a fine razor edge on L6. It seemed like it had a stubborn burr that I could only clean off with diamond hones.

 

[cbach8tw]

thanks guys, the dealer who sold me it said it should not be too hard to sharpen.

 

[G.E. Lee]

If you have an L6 steel mountain man/butcher knife made in North Carolina with the initials L.W. on it, my guess it is the work of Larry Walker. He lives in Forest City, N.C. The name of his company is "Knives of the Frontier." His email is lnrwalker@bellsouth.net. His phone number is (828) 248-2611. He also has a cell#--(704) 472-6739.

I gave a similar knife made by Larry to a friend this past winter, and my friend and his wife have used it extensively in their kitchen with great results. L6 is a tough steel that is good for chopping, at least as good as a knife can be at that chore--which is sometimes better handled by a cleaver. My friends have only used cooking oil as a rust preventative and report that that has worked fine. They have not had problems with sharpening.

The knife I bought from him camel bone scale handles and had a convex edge that he had put on with a belt sander. It was plenty sharp.

 

[These_Nutz]

I almost baught a knife in L6 before i got the chance to get a Busse it is meant to be really tough maybe stronger than INFI iread once but ive no idea from experience.
I heard it rusts real easy also and tends to pit rather than surface rust.
Ive heard of people using saws that were years old to make knives from this stuff so if the saw survived that long and was still good enough to make blades out of it cant be as bad as some say if you maintain it.