D2 is hard!!

rocketmann

rocketmann

Joined
Dec 24, 2005
Messages
1,254
I stopped by a local machine shop today looking to pick up some tool steel, and the guy gives me a piece of D2 1/4" x 1 3/4" x 5' for free!! Well I felt pretty good about it untill I tried to profile out a blade :eek: .I've allready gone thru 2 port a band blades and I'm only about 1/6 done..I thought that this stuff should allready be annealed if I'm not mistaken. Should I anneal it again?? Any good tips on working with this steel?? I plan to send the blade out for heat treating since I don't have an oven. Any tips would help alot!! Thanks as always :confused:
 
I would recomend not using a portaband on that piece of steel. Use a 1" wide very fine tooth blade on a large bandsaw and go slow. It would of course be best to us a mill, but not everybody has access to one. it should come annealed, unless that is the reason it was free!
 
You could drop by a fabrication shop and have it plasma cut.Shouldn't cost more than 5 bucks.
 
Chances are you are hardening it enough to strip or round-over the teeth on your bandsaw blade. D2, A1, and most of the fancy air-quenching stainless steels should all be sawn with a coolant flow, and slow speed. Oh sure, they can always be friction-cut, or torched, but you will always have a hardened side where that was cut. Like RJ said, grinding the profile will get you down the road a lot quicker.
 
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