Chainsaw bar steel to Rambo style knife!

S

shqxk

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Mar 26, 2012
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I made a knife from a used STIHL chainsaw bar. My guess it should be L6 type steel so I austenitizing at 1525F 10 min soak and double quench in fast oil.

I have chop some 2x4 with it and it hold up very well not even a sign of dullness. Try force patina on this blade and it seems to resist darken much better than plain carbon steel that make me believe this should be some type of nickel steel. Anyone has try using chainsaw bar before? what your experience about the material?

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A couple of years ago, I made this knife (Called the Kelley Savage) from a 20" Stihl Chainsaw bar. It turned out great but I do remember that even after annealing the bar, it was some slow cutting on the bandsaw and took a lot of time to grind it. I heat treated it as if it were 1084 and that was quite successful. Since then I have made a few more of the same model from 1084.
 
It was bugging me so I just called Stihl and asked them. They said it's "high carbon" steel." They said it was a proprietary steel and therefore couldn't give me anymore details. I have a call in with Oregon and am waiting to hear back from them.

Kind of surprised me honestly as I've seen some saws run through wet, green wood for hours and not get any rust. But then when I leave a small fingerprint on a high carbon blade, rust will form in 5mins it seems lol. Especially with o-1. I guess they have rust preventing coatings. Even still, I've seen saws do the above that had the coating worn off and still didn't rust...

If someone wanted to send me a couple coupons(pieces of chainsaw steel) I'd test their hardness. I could heat treat them too if needed. It would probably be good to have one without anything done to it, and one heat treated like 1084 or 1095.
 
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STIHL Duromatic chainsaw bar can be any of a steel 10__ steel , sometimes reach for a good piece but not the rule ... HT results may vary ... but it is a rule with recycled materials when certainly do not know exactly with what you're doing.
Of course can serve the purpose but do not expect constant results.
 
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