wierd steel i never heard of

ONEBIGBOWIE

ONEBIGBOWIE

Joined
Sep 9, 2015
Messages
136
i was looking on bladehq about different types of steels and they had one called stellite 6-k, that i never heard of and the only information on it was that it had no iron in it! anybody have any info on this steel
 
I don't think it's technically a steel as much as it is a material. My impression is that it is an inordinately expensive material that was briefly in vogue in the custom knife world due to its ability to reach a high wear resistance without having carbon. The omission of carbon makes it impervious to oxidation, so it cannot rust or patina.
 
Stellite 6-K is basically not a steel, but is carbides (what make steel cut generally) suspended in a matrix.

The big thing with it is that it is not able to rust, and it is non-magnetic. It performs rather well at tasks involving rougher or more fibrous material when it comes to cutting, but it will not hold up well to rough use or impacts, as the inherent hardness of the matrix holding the carbides is rather low.

Really interesting stuff, as it does not need to heat treated, doesn't even flinch at salt water, and one can make an entirely non-magnetic knife with it, but not many makers use it because it is expensive, and is not going to act anything like a steel when you grind it.
 
Charr said:
but not many makers use it because it is expensive, and is not going to act anything like a steel when you grind it.
Click to expand...

And it is incredibly difficult to machine. Really, really tough on milling/drilling tools. So, it's not only expensive to procure, but also to produce.
 
darks said:
And it is incredibly difficult to machine. Really, really tough on milling/drilling tools. So, it's not only expensive to procure, but also to produce.
Click to expand...


Forgot to mention that part. Yeah, it KILLS tools way faster than most steels, especially when you think of the cutting performance you get out of it. It's not really an improvement (and can actually be a down-grade in some cases) over something like S35VN or CPM-154 for most people, but it's massively harder to make a blade with it in comparison.
Tom Mayo does some amazingly good knives in Stellite 6K, but he's one of the only makers I see use it extensively.
 
The M-60 machine gun uses stellite for barrels (instead of making them easy to change).
 
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/90124-STELLITE-6K?highlight=stellite

Stellite 6k was/is made by a company called Deloro. This cobalt based alloy is used in many industries, including turbine blades, and anything that has high friction. Rock crusher cones in open pit mining use to use stellite6k, but this may have changed due to cost.

Kit Carson was a huge proponent of Stellite and made me what may be the largest Stellite knife ever made. It was a custom U2 4 inches long of 1/4" thick 2 inch wide stellite6k.
 
I love Stellite 6K. I have a custom knife with made of this; my Seamus Knives Cracked Uber has a blade made of Stellite 6K.

 
As far as more common makers, I understand Emerson has made his CQC-6 and possibly 7 with blades of this metal. As mentioned, it's nonmagnetic and doesn't rust, which makes it good for EOD and amphibious military personnel.
 
David Boye's boat knives are made of a cobalt alloy similar to Stellite. He casts to shape so there is not as much machining to do. FWIW Stellite is fairly easily shaped/sharpened with diamond abrasives
 
RX-79G said:
The M-60 machine gun uses stellite for barrels (instead of making them easy to change).
Click to expand...

Close but not quite the barrel has an insert made of stellite that goes about a third of the way down the barrel from the chamber. It is to prevent corrosion and wear resistance due to the extreme cycle rate of the weapon.
 
Mahoney said:
David Boye's boat knives are made of a cobalt alloy similar to Stellite. He casts to shape so there is not as much machining to do. FWIW Stellite is fairly easily shaped/sharpened with diamond abrasives
Click to expand...

I have no experience with stellite in knife blades, but have a lot of experience with it in saw blade tips. With the right abrasive, as you say, it is pretty easily ground, although we have found CBN (cubic boron nitride) to perform better when grinding stellite in our industry. It seems to load resin-bonded diamond wheels rather quickly.
 
go0dMAN said:
How stellite compare to infi?
Click to expand...

They're kind of made for entirely different things in knives honestly.

Infi tends to be good for larger choppers, and is a tool steel with nitrogen added to make it much more corrosion resistent and tougher, so it is best used in a larger knife designed for chopping or heavy work.

Stellite is usually used to make smaller knifes as it tends to slightly deform under impact strain instead of retaining its shape. And it's cutting performance is also hard to gauge against Infi since they will very rarely be cutting the same things.

If you could find a blade in Infi with roughly the same geometry as one made in Stellite, you're could do a more fair comparison, but the chances of that are very low, and they will act drastically different from one another in general.
 
alphaknifesupply.com:

" Stellite 6K is a cobalt alloy. It is not steel. When it is made, the chromium, molybdenum and tungsten combine with carbon to form carbides. The cobalt forms a soft and strong matrix that holds the carbides in place. This means that a Rockwell or other hardness tests will test the matrix and give relatively low readings. The hardness and wear resistance are in the carbides, not the cobalt.

Stellite 6K is excellent for some uses and is a poor performer for others. For example, Stellite is excellent when used for cuting meats & vegetables. The edge holding is better than steel. However, if used for chopping hard wood, the soft cobalt rolls over and the knife does not cut well. It has extreme corrosion resistance. It will not corrode in salt water."




Sounds interesting but nothing I would seek.

Not my kind of alloy.

I'd probably be happier even with 420hc
 
Mahoney said:
David Boye's boat knives are made of a cobalt alloy similar to Stellite. He casts to shape so there is not as much machining to do. FWIW Stellite is fairly easily shaped/sharpened with diamond abrasives
Click to expand...
Im not disputing your post (most knives are easily sharpened using diamond abrasives and I dont currently own a Stellite knife) but Boye recommends, that one sharpens his cobalt knives using a medium stone (non-diamond), as diamond sharpening will quickly remove too much material and shorten the service life of the cobalt blade.

Might that be the same with the Stellite blades, as they seem to be similar.

RX-79G said:
The M-60 machine gun uses stellite for barrels (instead of making them easy to change).
Click to expand...

STAINLESS90 said:
Close but not quite the barrel has an insert made of stellite that goes about a third of the way down the barrel from the chamber. It is to prevent corrosion and wear resistance due to the extreme cycle rate of the weapon.
Click to expand...
Further more the barrel of the Pig is fairly easy to change.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top