Lawnmower Blade Advice in the Blade Mag

[Alden Sherrodd]

Wayne, thank you for the update and for the information you provide.
billf, The use of the word acolyte came from Kevin's post along with other spiritual references to make it look like there was a cult afoot.
Kevin, thank you for the information you provide. I find it interesting to hear what steel you like. Yes the "flat earth' comment touched a nerve and still does. This time you used other disparaging terms to describe persons that may disagree with you. I have seen it numerous times that you throw out that stuff to prevent any dissenting comments. As no one wants to sign on to be a Kool aid slurper, dark age whatever, or the name of the week.
I do not provide a great deal of information, but offer advice where I feel I have something to offer. I myself find it interesting to use materials with some history or just an object repurposed into something useful. That is art. If you take the time to learn how to use used steel, you will follow centuries of tradition. If you are honest with your customers, then everyone should be happy.
Sincerely,
Alden

 

[Hmathews]

Wayne G. thanks for posting the results of your test with the mower blade. I believe you said that they would harden, not that it would be your first choice of steel for a knife.

When I was looking at the web site of Rotary Corp., I noticed that their description of the steel used was “premium grade, high carbon steel". It was only when I asked that I was told it was 10B38, which, I guess, would fall in the category of medium carbon steel. This could certainly cause some to assume that the mower blades would be made of suitable steel for making knives. From talking with them the steel they use is deliberately picked for the properties they want a mower blade to have. A mower blade, from the manufacturer's view point, just doesn't happen to have the same requirements of the steel as steel used in a knife blade does to most people. I guess the marketing person’s job is to create hype to sell the blades, the engineer’s job is to make a product that performs and is not dangerous to use and there is where the difference lies.

Still it is hard to resist trying it. Might make a good spear blade for sticking hogs. Wouldn't have to hold an edge very long but it would need to be tough.

 

[Steve Hayden]

Several knife manufacturers claim that 420 J2 is high Carbon Stainless, too. That doesn't make it so....

 

[Wayne G.]

I sharpen blades for a landscape guy, he's got a new John Deere outfit that had two real heavy blades. He's supposed to let me have the worn out ones, they are at least 1/4" thick.

I will be rounding up as many blades as I can find to see if I can't find one that won't harden. I seriously doubt that there any blades in service that aren't heat treated by hardening and tempering, or perhaps martempering.

At 52/54Rc, that's about right for a throwing knife and steel like that will make good springs.

 

[Kevin R. Cashen]

I usually avoid posting in these type of threads, as I'm sure lots of folks do - once they get side-tracked it can get ugly...

Indeed I felt it going south early on and should have had the sense to feel the undertow and get out before I got sucked in, some of us will never learn.

…, but I have met Kevin, at Ashokan. I've spoken with him face to face, asked him plenty of dumb questions and watched lots of others ask him dumb and not-so-dumb questions. I've never seen him be insulting/derisive/condescending toward a single person. I've never seen him claim his way is the only way, and in fact there is a lot of lively, NON-PERSONAL, give and take at Ashokan…

Thank you Bill, the internet thing will always fail to convey a person’s true personal demeanor and your words are very kind, perhaps too kind. While I do try to avoid insulting/derisive/condescending behavior and see no reason for anything to become personal, in all fairness I could see where those attending some of my talks at Ashokan could read my passion as intolerance when it comes to people not doing their own research and information gathering. In fact one would find me rather intolerant if they ever took the position that anything in my talks was factual simply because I said so. As I often point out, very little of what I share is my own, it is all out there in countless industry texts and metallurgical papers waiting for any of us to use in our own studies. If we all tapped that magnificent resource none of my talks at Ashokan would be necessary, and my ability to answer “dumb” or not so dumb questions would be irrelevant.

Wayne, thank you for the update and for the information you provide.

And for taking the time to address this less than welcoming thread in person, in any stream the water is clearest at the source.

…This time you used other disparaging terms to describe persons that may disagree with you. I have seen it numerous times that you throw out that stuff to prevent any dissenting comments...

No Alden you still don’t get it. I don’t disparage those who disagree with me, but I do have to confess to disparaging those who will only accept information that comfortably validates their existing beliefs. Look around the internet and you will find people I have praised for going much farther than just dissenting comments when they questioned me enough to see for themselves. To this day one of the highest compliments I have ever received was by Lee Cordochorea when he wrote “You want to know something truly ironic? One of the reasons I first started looking really hard at all this metallurgy stuff was to prove Kevin Cashen wrong! Keep that crusade of yours going, Kevin - it is working!”

Some of my favorite people in the whole world are the ones who are so ticked at me that their rage drives them to the library. Sorry but if calling names will get more people cracking metallurgy books, no epithet is too much for me. If somebody ends up hating me but has much more knowledge about the inside of steel because of it, I consider that an acceptable tradeoff since the entire craft will benefit in the long run.

If I cannot be a teacher then gadfly will do just fine

 

[Angus McGunnigl]

I enjoyed the whole "spirit" of The $50 Knife Shop.

It encouraged me to start a new hobby and I found it a challenge to try to do things as inexpensive as possible at first.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Thanks for posting in ,Wayne. I appreciate your explanation.
I also want to say that I appreciate you and did not mean to vilify you personally or your attack the article. My concern was the ( as this thread and other clearly show) ease that a single statement can be mis-interpreted and mis-directed.

As I said in my post, I don't think you or anyone else meant for this to become a big thing. The semantics of the word "harden" is probably the cause of the brouhaha.
You truthfully stated that all the mower blades you had tried would harden, and in your methods and experience that was true. Some folks, like Kevin ( I am speaking for him without his permission) and I ,feel that when talking about knife blades, the term harden means "fully harden" ,or "properly harden", and implies a certain amount of carbon to make a good blade. We tend to wrap the whole process in the word "HARDEN". This makes sense to us , but is not necessarily the same to you.

The fact that any lawn mower blade will harden is surely true. 1018 steel will harden, just not very deep or very hard.

The opinions and slants of people like Wayne Goddard, Kevin Cashen, Tai Goo, Ed Fowler, and many many more.......on this forum make it one of the greatest knife making sites around. I applaud those folks for their efforts and advise. The diversity of opinion is the spice that makes this stew work.

Occasionally we all dip into name calling ( to various degrees) and such things almost always spin out of control. A look at the Cambridge ,Mass. newspaper headlines can show how easily a simple situation can spin into a national uproar.....while not really amounting to a hill of beans in the totality of it all. Harsh and pointed words are hard to take back, and often hard to forget. I suggest that we all try and avoid such things when possible. If a thread starts to descend into name calling or challenges, we should not reply or post any more on it.


Now, we should let this thread and the other one related to it go..........
And we should all go out into the shop and make some knives........
from whatever type of steel ,quenchants, and methods give us pleasure.

Stacy

 

[Tai Goo]

Sometimes, the best thoughts are the ones left unsaid.

 

[Broos]

One will never "booklearn" anything if they only read one sentence of the book on it!

And correctly conveying the meaning of what is written is the responsibility of the reviewer, reader, or quoter.

I'm going to go check my old metallurgy textbook to see if there are any sentences that I can take out of context.

 

[69_knives]

I understand that the B stands for a boron treatment and I have no idea what that would do to the steel other than it is supposed to increase the hardenability.

Perhaps they are making boron carbides with the HT somehow. I think boron carbides are the hardest of the known carbides.