Knife from Dry Cut Saw Blade?

T

The Mighty Ginsu

Joined
Aug 11, 2016
Messages
251
I have a 14" dry cut saw that is too damaged to be worth fixing. Should I keep it and see if I can make knives from it?

I don't even know if the blade is hardened, now that I think about it. Modern blades have carbide tips, so I would think using good steel would be a waste of money. Although I suppose an annealed blade would bend too easily.
 
Last edited:
The Mighty Ginsu said:
I have a 14" dry cut saw that is too damaged to be worth fixing. Should I keep it and see if I can make knives from it?

I don't even know if the blade is hardened, now that I think about it. Modern blades have carbide tips, so I would think using good steel would be a waste of money. Although I suppose an annealed blade would bend too easily.
Click to expand...

is this like some kind of high speed steel blade? It's a no go for knives - even bimetal blades have teeth that are hard enough to cut annealed or marginally cut half hardened steel The teeth get rubbed off right away if they're introduced to something that accidentally air hardens.

Even if you could conquer the question about what steel the center of the blade is, I doubt it's at a good hardness for knife blades, and who knows what the grain orientation is. The core of circular saw blades usually isn't that hard as they have to be able to endure striking something without shattering and killing someone.
 
D-weaver said:
Even if you could conquer the question about what steel the center of the blade is, I doubt it's at a good hardness for knife blades, and who knows what the grain orientation is. The core of circular saw blades usually isn't that hard as they have to be able to endure striking something without shattering and killing someone.
Click to expand...
Yes they are not enough hard for knives , but they can be hardened and temper again .
 
Natlek said:
Yes they are not enough hard for knives , but they can be hardened and temper again .
Click to expand...

Agree with that. A quick high heat and quench would tell right away if there was any potential (just looked up the alloy -75cr1 - google-machine claims that the steel is used also in plates for carbide tipped saws), but it's probably partially hardened in any saw blade of any size or the blades would wobble at high speed - and not fully hardened or they wouldn't be able to machine tension them or keep them from turning into a man killer.

But it does look like it would be a good simple steel for a knife without much surplus anything.
 
My two cents is listen to Stacy’s advice throw the saw in the garbage and buy a quality annealed piece of cutlery steel. At 14” diameter my guess on thickness is it’s probably substantially less than 1/8” thick, so your going to limited small light duty blade designs. The finished product isn’t going to compare to modern cutlery steels in edge retention or toughness depending on the alloy you choose. The only reason I use carbon steel now days is if the customer asks for it, for example if I’m making a replica that requires it. I’ve made lots of knife blades out of saw blades and files, they’re all a cheap source of blade steel but that’s about it. Once I started ordering the good high alloy and having my blades heat treated I never went back to files or saw blades.
 
Put it in the scrap pile for the day you find yourself interested in welding sculpture. One sees quite a few sawblades in sculptures on IG.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top