Can I make something from bandsaw blade?

S

Steelwolf

Joined
Jul 19, 1999
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The guys in the workshop are throwing away a bandsaw blade. It was used for cutting metal so I'm guessing its composition has enough carbon to make a knife (tell me if I'm jumping to conclusions). The only trouble is that the blade is about 1/16" thick. That's about as thick as my fillet knife and feels a whole lot more flimsy. (Oh, and it's 1" wide and about 8 feet long)

So I'm sourcing for opinions on:
Is it possible for the material to be made in to a knife blade?

What style of blade should I attempt to make? (most likely fillet knife, seeing how thin it is) How big? (like a skinner style but 3" long?) Or can I go bigger but stiffen it up with composites like glass fibre?

Should I try forging and folding it up to a thicker piece? If so, any advice or points to note? Any resources to help familiarise me with the process of folding?

Should I just forget the whole thing?
But I'm willing to try anything once, so give me some advice. Thanks in advance.
 
First things first..

1. Making a filleting knife is going the easy way, but i don't see how a that fast rusting steel is any good in a filleting knife.

2. Folding it a few times is the hard way. While your at it, I suggest trowing in a few pieces of file in the mix, the stuff thickens faster and you've got real good using damascus.

Now, I ony made about 200 gr of O-1 - file damascus as a test, but it was my first try and it went perfect, against all odds you could say. The problem I noticed with bandsaw is that you better put the thicker layers of steel (file, O-1...)on the outside, so the bandsaws don't bend on the outside.
Second: heat it tourougly and get it hot enough. If a metal is fastly heated, it jetisons fotons at a certain temp. But the yellow hot stuff could be only the first mm !
Always keep this in mind. Better to keep it 5
minutes in the red-zone and then take it to yellow-orange and try to keep it there as long as possible without burning it.
Third: use sufficient saftey devices such as an apron, glasses...Borax really burns trough a lot, including your skin.

greetz, Bart.

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"If the world wouldn't SUCK, we'd all fall off !"

member of the BKS
http://www.expage.com/belgianknives
 
I recently saw some knives made by Ken and Paula Largin of Kelgin Knives that were made from bandsaw steel. These were "practice knives" made in their instructional classes. Paula said that there was such a demand for them that they were selling them. The steel was just profiled to shape and sharpened, being too thin to bevel grind. Some of the knives were long like fillet knives, others were shorter and shaped more like skinners. All had wood handles. Unless I misunderstood, Paula said that these blades were not heat treated. They just quench in water continuously while profiling the blade on the belt sander to retain the original hardness of the saw steel. I guess the steel is thin enough to be easy to grind in its hardened state. (Any thoughts on this?) The bandsaw was originally about 1 1/2 inches wide.

This is my first post to the forum. I have been lurking for awhile and I have learned a lot. I appreciate all the knowledge you folks are sharing.

Dan
 
The first thing to do with the bandsaw blade is see if it will get hard.
Heat a piece to non-magnetic and quench in water, put on your safety glasses and hit it with a hammer. if it shatters it will be blade material. A lot of band saw blade has only hard steel in the teeth the back is mild or medium steel.
Layered up with banding material they make nice damascus.

Little thin knifes sounds kinda interesting.
You could make a bow saw.

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Sola Fide
 
Thanks for the ideas so far.

MikeS, I guess I forgot about doing that test first. Thanks for reminding me. Was about to plunge in straight away.
tongue.gif
BTW, do you suggest oil or water quench for carbon steel?

Pretender, any links to material on these people, or a website? I'll like to find out more about what they were doing.

Bart, thanks for the suggestions. Unfortunately, there are no files at this time. I keep begging them for it, but they haven't worn any yet. And I suspect they are able to etch/sharpen the files so it will be quite a while before I get any.
 
You guys are talkin' about itty-bitty-bandsaw blades, but the ones comin' out of the big sawmills are either L6 or somethin' relatively similar (.75-.90 carbon; .40-.50 Mn; .30-50 Si; .25-.90 Cr; 1.6-2.2 Ni.

These are .110 - .130" in thickness, and are 9" - 14" wide.

I just bought 600' of this stuff...my buddy & I had to lower 9 blades from the 3rd floor fileroom of a bankrupt sawmill....scariest thing I ever did.....almost knocked off the landing once, and it was a miracle neither of us was cut to ribbons!!!!
 
You can use most stuff that's suitable for knife-blades, but file and O-1 are the easiest to forgeweld, in my opinion.
52100 goes too, 5160 is a little tougher.
And I duobt anyone can resharpen files, at least not the files I have in mind. It would take a full new ground side of teeth ! Maybe they just use VERY good files?

------------------
"If the world wouldn't SUCK, we'd all fall off !"

member of the BKS
http://www.expage.com/belgianknives
 
For quench testing I just use water.

I like warm vegetable oil for blades, unless I make chef's knifes, then I use extra virgin olive oil
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------------------
Sola Fide
 
I have made a few knives from band saw blades. I've kept the length under 3" because of the flexability and thinness. They make nice neck knives, especially with deer antler handles. I did most of the shapng with files, and just sharpened the thin steel without beveling. They take a good edge, but won't hold it like a properly heat treated blade.
They are fun to make, so I don't really care if edge holding isn't great.

Paul
 
Thanks guys. A couple of interesting ideas here. I bit the bullet and brought home some of it. Since I don't have all my tools here, I just used my handy little dremmel for all the cutting and shaping. Produced a small blade with a 1.5" edge. Cute, small, but not very well done. The edge doesn't take very well. I wonder why. I'm doing my best not to let the metal get too hot during the cutting, so I doubt if the temper is getting seriously affected. Dunno. Going to try again.
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BTW, MikeS, I'm reading the book "Step by step knife making" by David Boye. Quite an interesting book. On page 206, he mentions "Using and electric kiln, I heat up to five knives simultaneously, to a full red glow. I quench them in olive oil, holding on the handle area with tongs." And again on page 115, "From my own observation, olive oil makes a prime quenching bath. The blades cool quickly, and very hard, but seldom crack. They also come out nice and clean and make my shop smell like someone is baking cookies!"

Pretty cool huh? But he didn't mention if he used extra virgin, cold pressed, or the cheap stuff.
biggrin.gif
 
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