Stellite

years ago there was an article in one of the knife magazines about a knifemaker making blades from Deloro Stellite, at the time Deloro had the patent on Stellite and had licensed only this one knifemaker to make knives from it. I remember being annoyed that here was this wondermetal that I couldn't use, now that I work with superalloys on a daily basis, I am absolutely convinced that steel is the best thing for knives

-Page
 
yes I know your right there is a reason so many industries still use steel, and non-ferrous metals are really just novelties.

See for me though its a learning experience. If I can get some I will not cut it to shape, but score, and break it, and I imagine there is allot to be learned grinding, and using the material. Heck I made a couple of knives from tungsten carbide. Good knife material? no. interesting to work with? definitely. There's also the cool factor :o guilty of wanting to believe in hype
 
Interesting thread. There are a lot of things that will cut better than steel in certain applications. I remember when I was at Emory, we went down to the basement where they had the "regular" non-scanning electron microscope. The samples were imbedded in some kind of plastic and then VERY thin slices were cut off using a microtome made for fractured glass. I remember reading that the obsidian weapons (basically black volcanic glass chipped to an edge) that the Mezo-Americans were using when the Spanish and Portugese arrived over here were scary sharp. They just weren't all that durable, especially when they went up against good old steel weapons. Same deal for bronze. IIRC, bronze is a lot easier to work with than iron/steel assuming that you have a supply of tin.
 
Nebulae said:
O.K. So learn me up on this. I have been trying to find out as much as I can about this material, and I have found it is very difficult to find information, and sources. I realize that Stellite was popular in the early 2000s, and it is not a replacement for steel, but I just want to play with the stuff, and learn about it. Everyone has heard about Stellite 6k, 6B, but there are dozens of other varieties that look like they have desirable properties, but I cant find much data on them, much less a source.
Look at Stellite 100
you can find some data here -stellite 100 seems to be very cool, 63Rc, but how tough?

Why is Stellite so expensive, so hard to find info on, and so hard to get. I have gotten tungsten carbide, and other materials realitivly easily, and reasonably cheaply. I haven't seen anything so elusive-Which is part of why I want it!
Click to expand...

Hello :

This is an interesting forum. Your post is sort of old so I hope you get this message. I can't find much on cobalt 100 - It must be an old term. Our company makes co-base alloys since 1959. At RC 63 it is probably not too tough.

The idea with cobalt alloys is to decide what you want and then you can look at carbon levels and processing methods to get what you want. It's not a steel. In some ways better. In some ways worse. Co-base alloys are expensive for a few reasons. Scrap is hard to find because a lot of people re-melt their scrap. And to make from elements is expensive. Considering the cost of Co, Cr, and W. Especially right now pure Co is $ 40-$ 50 per lb.. It is uncommon so information is more rare. Steel or aluminum has a lot more information. It is not hard to get from our company but when melting charge metal is scarce it can be hard to buy - even from us. We have a lot of data on the co-base alloys. Just starting to look at possible knife applications. To buy actual Stellite material can be more problematic as there are trademark and liscencing issues. But there is no problem with making cobalt alloys if you know what you're doing. In fact because most of the applications are not patent protected people are very protective of their proprietary information. And for some reason the military buyers are very tight-lipped and won't really discuss much. We've tried. Patents are not a great method anyway. It just advertises publicly how you make it.

Looking forward to learning more about knife applications.
 
Nebulae said:
Signal mirrors? that is a weird use, I wonder why? from what I have heard it doesn't finish well.
Click to expand...

I don't know signal mirrors. But I can say that co-base alloys can be finished to a very smooth surface. We make co-base tooling all the time.
 
Russ Andrews said:
I asked the same question of the Cabot Corp Rep. ( They
made Stellite then...early 70's). He said it would take a high
polish, and not shatter when struck by a bullet.
Click to expand...

That is interesting. We have been trying to make co-base armor but no luck yet. They must have a really good way of making it.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top