[TheForge] Drilling hard metal

[Cameron Stoker]

I had similar difficulty drilling L-6 (from admiral). The best I  
could do was a very high spot tempering of the tang. The critical  
temp for my batch wass around 1360*f. It gets a little easier to  
drill if you temper it up to a blood red color (1100*f) w/ torch.  It  
still took a lot of drill sharpening & using 5% cobalt bits.
The temper on the whole blade was to 675*f, and it was just silly to  
try to drill in this condition. From what I gather on knife lists,  
the admiral L-6 isn't quite as tough as the crucible L-6.
I also tried to get a full anneal before heat treating: heat to 1400  
in an electric kiln, stepping the temp down over 3 hours, and they  
were still pretty dang hard. Quite different than 1095. Some on the  
knife list said the only way they could get the crucible l6 to soften  
was multiple extended trips up to 1200*f.


                 Cameron Stoker
                 cameron at stoker.net
                 "May you run like a vicuña!"