Bandsaw blades for knives

C

captainbobino

Joined
Dec 23, 2007
Messages
17
Greetings,

I am an aspiring maker and have learned a lot reading here and from books, etc. I recently went to an estate sale that was advertising tools. Well, the tools were not much to crow about, but I found some old bandsaw blades leaning in the corner of the garage. They had been cut into 5 foot lengths and are about 3/16" thick and 9" across. (I live in an old mill town).

I bought about 50 lineal feet of this stuff for $5! If this stuff is any good I figure I'll have a lifetime supply.

I know from my research here and elsewhere that bandsaw steel is often L6, but have no way of knowing what this stuff is. What I do know is this stuff is HARD. I was finally able to cut off a manageable piece by drilling a series of holes with cutting oil (many broken bits) and a hacksaw.

Any ideas for roughing out the knife blanks? Would a die grinder with an abrasive wheel work and get it close enough for grinding?

Any ideas are welcome and appreciated.

The Capt.
 
here are you from Capt. Maybe someone close to you thast can be of hands on help.
 
I'm not sure what you have for equipment.

A coal forge/gas forge will allow you to heat and forge the blade to shape.

You can heat the steel in a forge and hot cut it into smaller pieces. You can flame cut/laser cut/water jet to smaller size, or heat it up with the torch to non magnetic and slow cool in ashes or lime to aneal then machine/grind to a blade.

The blades are most likely L6, can't beat the price.
 
Get David Boye's book Step by Step knifemaking. In it he shows you step by step from band saw blade to finish knife.
 
It's just a rumor. The steel is most likely NOT L6. I made many hundreds of knives from old saw steel, years ago and none of it acted like L6. 3/16" thick? Too thick for band saw blades also. If is sections of old circular saw blades, it is probably good stuff.
 
I had a very large bandsaw tested.
It is very close to your dimensions
though not quite that thick maybe .080
The Company said it was 15n20

Sawmill Bandsaw blade (Large)
C 0.67%
Mn 0.38%
SI 0.23%
Cr 0.16%
Ni 1.98%
Mo 0.009%
P 0.005%
S <0.001%
Cu 0.12%
Fe 96.39%
 
Thank you to everyone who took the time to chime in. I have ordered Boye's book and will try that.

The Captain
 
Power hacksaw blades are super, my Dad uses them all the time for blade material. Its also what 90,000 Murphy Combat knives were made out of during WWII. You can get them up to 24" long and as thick as .10".
 
I'm using something similar, but it's 12" across and 3/32" thick. I've been advised that it's probably 15n20, and I think that's true in my case. It seems to need a pretty fast quench. I have not achieved full hardness with canola oil or automatic transmission fluid and I may try water next.

Make a test blade and see what happens. An angle grinder or bench grinder will be most helpful.
 
caribooblades said:
15n20 is the Swedish version of L6.

The thickest I've come across is 1/8".

Scott.

Cariboo Blades
Click to expand...

15n20 isn't all that close to L6 as shown by the specs below, the main difference being the inclusion of .8%ish of chrome in L6.


15n20
C-0,75
Si-0,3
MN-0,4
P-0,02
S-0,015
Ni-2,0

15n20
C-0.78%,
Mn-0.39%,
Ni-2.1%,
Cr- 0.15%


L6
Carbon 0.65 - 0.75
Chromium 0.6 - 1.2
Manganese 0.25 - 0.8
Molybdenum 0.5 max
Nickel 1.25 - 2
Phosphorus 0.03 max
Silicon 0.5 max
Sulphur 0.03 max
 
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