lawn mower blades

Go for it, I've heard that because of liability issues the manufacturer's of lawn mower blades pretty much have to use decent steel. Robert Rossdeutscher used a knife made from a mower blade, complete with the hole left in it for the cutting competition at Batsons this year. It survived the competition with no edge deformations at all. He named it "El Ojo del Toro", :D .
 
Wayne Goddard did a multi-part series in Blade which included making a knife from lawnmower blades. They worked very well, as I recall.
 
Does somebody know which kind of steel are lawnmower blades
(Simple carbon stell I imagine ?)

Alain M-D
 
Most good mower blades are 5160 steel. Just watch for stress cracks/risers if your using used blades.
 
A little story about lawn mower blades. I had a friend come over for his son to forge a knife. He left more or less happy with the results but when he came back for sheath work and finishing I could see he didn't have any respect for the blade. I sharpened it and took an old 2X4 and chopped it in half. When I showed him it would still shave hair on my arm he showed lots more respect for his knife!
Lynn
 
I think they vary. My employer has several large John Deere tractor mowers. The mechanics here have given me several blades that are pretty large and 3/8" thick. I just got them recently and have not had time to make some blades and test, although I did straighten and anneal them. I asked our mechanic what kind of steel they were. He asked the John Deere rep. who said they were 5160. Another friend got some from a Toro rep. who told him that those were 1084. My hunch is that several different, high quality steels are used for the liability issue previously mentioned.
 
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