Precision Ground W2 ??

I'm not knocking Trembley but their stock of W2 covered a long time span of manufacture and the chemistry was all over the board. I bought a bunch of drops from them, as well as squares and flats, I almost gave up on W2 when I was searching for the allusive hamon. The chemistry I was given was a standard range for W2. Burt Foster contacted me about this and said he was having the same trouble. Burt had a few pieces from different bars analyzed and got way different chemistry from each bar. This can frustrate the hell out of someone with the hamon disease :)

I finally had a few long phone conversations with the president of the above company. This answered a lot of my questions about W2 and he helped me locate a large batch, all from the same melt, with the chemistry that would help end my insanity.

It wasn't until I found all this round stock from the same melt and actually got the cert that came with this batch, that I started getting the results I wanted from W2.

I also looked into having a batch of W2 made to my specs but at $8 to $10 per pound, I wasn't interested.
 
I got most of the W2 I have from Trembley a couple of years ago... five different forms. Of that, only the 9/16" rnd, and 3/8"x1.5"x16" was actually W2. The 11/16", which I almost bought a bunch of, tested as 1.20%C W1, The 1"x1" is 1095, as are the two small flats. All of these were sold to me as "drops" (cut-offs and/or full sticks but leftover from old orders... GM order, in this case). The prices were great, but...

The knocking around I've done looking for drops has taught me to be serious in evaluating tool steel suppliers. Some of them have "drops" well under control, some quite a bit less than that. An example... Sold as L6, yet tested chemistry of: 0.65 C, 1.27 Mn, 0.64 Cr, 0.50W, 0.27 V. A person can search http://www.matweb.com all day long and not find an AISI range that chemistry falls into... nearest thing a person comes to is searching the Mn-Cr-W and finding it's O1 with 0.20 C less than bottom end of accepted O1 range... not L6, for an absolutely.

Last I knew, talking directly with Trembley last summer, they had no W2, drops or new. It's possible they have new stock now... price on it would give a person an idea.

Don,

When and how much were you looking at when thinking of having a W2 batch made?

Mike...

Oh, if anyone is looking for L6 (of the "with Mo" variety), Trembley had some in 5/8"x3/4" and 1"x1"... hundereds of pounds, each. The 3/4"x1 1/4" listed as L6 they have is what turned out to be the "not L6" from above. If the L6 is still available, I've got the chemistry on it.
 
Mike,
What's the chemistry on Tremblay's L6..?

Thanks,
 
Mike Krall said:
Last I knew, talking directly with Trembley last summer, they had no W2, drops or new. It's possible they have new stock now... price on it would give a person an idea.

Don,

When and how much were you looking at when thinking of having a W2 batch made?

Mike...
Click to expand...
Mike, no one has new W2 that I'm aware of and I have spent way too much time looking:)

I don't remember the details of my lookin into a new batch of W2. I do recall most mills wont talk to ya for less than 80,000 lbs but there was one that would do small custom melts of around 8,000 to 10,000 and this was where the high price came from.

This is what I'm now getting with this W2 :D

super-hamon3-08.jpg
 
Russ,

If they still have it, mind you... and they did at end of August '07... and it's been around a while, near as I can tell.

5/8"x3/4"
0.73 C, 0.79 Mn, 0.86Cr, 1.79 Ni, 0.37 Mo

1"x1"
0.75 C, 0.58 Mn, 0.62 Cr, 1.09 Ni, 0.24 Mo

AISI/UNS composition for L6:
0.65 to 0.75 C, 0.25 to 0.80 Mn, 0.50 Si max., 0.60 to 1.20 Cr, 1.25 to 2.00 Ni, 0.50 Mo max., 0.20 to 0.30 V (optional).

These drops (some short pieces but mostly full pieces as order leftover) fall in center of Si max. Copper is a little high. The 1"x1" is below-range Ni. Both of these L6's air harden...

For those interested... 5/8"x3/4" pushed wider to 1/4" thickness is 1 7/8"... plenty for a big blade... with enough arm... this is not your grandma's 1084... and it is not fun in a 3/4" wide damascus billet either... standard disclaimers... :)

Call Trembley and ask for Stan... don't tell him who sent you... :)

Mike
 
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