Magnetoman
Motorcycle Club Member
Following is the answer to a question posed in the other forum by Vincent Brake:
Stellite 6 is the one to use for wear resistance. I used it on the ends of the new pushrods I made for my 1928 Ariel and they showed no sign of wear at the end of the 3000-mile Cannonball. The case hardening broke through on one of the lifters during the Cannonball so they're now Stellited as well. However, preheating to 300 ℉ is advised, and it will crack if applied directly over high carbon steel (e.g., case-hardened steel) without a buffer layer of Inconel 625.
I should add that Stellite 6 also goes by the code ERCoCr-A, and is sold under proprietary names like Stoodite 6. Also, it is only widely available in sizes down to 1/16" (0.062"), which can be a little large for our uses since it puts down more material than often needed. When I was rebuilding the Ariel Someone at Polystel kindly gave me a few rods of 0.045"-diameter, which was much better, since the same length of filler only contains half the volume of Stellite. The smaller diameter is available, but at much higher cost-per-pound than the larger diameters, but I finally broke down and bought 1 lb. of it since there is no substitute for it when it's needed.
Correction: reviewing my notes, I re-discovered that 1/16" is difficult and expensive to find, which is the size Polystel gave me in a quantity of a few rods. Even then, 1/16" puts down more material than I'd like for some purposes so later I found even-more-expensive 0.045". The guy at Polystel told me that the way the rods are manufactured means 3/32" is the smallest common size. Basically, 3/32" puts down twice the volume of material as 1/16", which puts down twice as much as 0.045".
Stellite 6 is the one to use for wear resistance. I used it on the ends of the new pushrods I made for my 1928 Ariel and they showed no sign of wear at the end of the 3000-mile Cannonball. The case hardening broke through on one of the lifters during the Cannonball so they're now Stellited as well. However, preheating to 300 ℉ is advised, and it will crack if applied directly over high carbon steel (e.g., case-hardened steel) without a buffer layer of Inconel 625.
I should add that Stellite 6 also goes by the code ERCoCr-A, and is sold under proprietary names like Stoodite 6. Also, it is only widely available in sizes down to 1/16" (0.062"), which can be a little large for our uses since it puts down more material than often needed. When I was rebuilding the Ariel Someone at Polystel kindly gave me a few rods of 0.045"-diameter, which was much better, since the same length of filler only contains half the volume of Stellite. The smaller diameter is available, but at much higher cost-per-pound than the larger diameters, but I finally broke down and bought 1 lb. of it since there is no substitute for it when it's needed.
Correction: reviewing my notes, I re-discovered that 1/16" is difficult and expensive to find, which is the size Polystel gave me in a quantity of a few rods. Even then, 1/16" puts down more material than I'd like for some purposes so later I found even-more-expensive 0.045". The guy at Polystel told me that the way the rods are manufactured means 3/32" is the smallest common size. Basically, 3/32" puts down twice the volume of material as 1/16", which puts down twice as much as 0.045".
Last edited:
