Lawnmower blades to Knives

I recommend doing a spark test first. I recently sharpened the blade on my Craftsman push mower and it was like working with steel in annealed condition.
 
AntDog said:
Saw this playing Fallout 3 tonight and thought of this thread.
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Fallout 3 was a classic, but I enjoyed New Vegas more.

More on topic, I think that if you can get the mower blades for free, it would be good material to practice with.
 
Just an FYI type of thing. I checked Rc hardness on a 54" deck Husky OEM blade today while I had it off mower for sharpening. I got 51 to 52 depending on location and blade. A tad harder than I really expected.

I found a couple other old after market mower blades from a Sears 42" deck mower. They checked at 44 and 46 Rc. Not as hard as the OEM Husky, but still a tad harder than I expected. I was looking for around 40 Rc or so.
 
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Billy The Blade said:
I just read @Cattaraugus225 's thread inquiring about Lawn mower blades and I thought he was going to ask if anyone here has made a knife or machete out of an old lawnmower blade.
So, I thought to ask the question.
(I did not do a prior search...😏)
B.T.B.

​

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I have made a larger machete sort of knife out of a lawnmower blades, and it is currently holding a razor sharp edge after cutting little shrubby trees, and ice. I had to submerge it and cut a piece of the blade out because it had warped, and it took two and a half packs of jigsaw blades to remove it.
 
It is frowned upon to dig up old threads.

Also usually frowned upon to use recycled materials for blades.

But, welcome to the forum.

Hoss
 
I have a knife from the Philippines that is from a leaf spring.

They must have re-heat treated the steel to something harder, as it's got pretty decent edge stability, and is ground relatively thin.

Not all springs are equal though in quality though.
 
If steel has enough carbon to be a spring, it has enough carbon to be a decent knife blade. Only the tempering is different.
 
DevinT said:
It is frowned upon to dig up old threads.

Also usually frowned upon to use recycled materials for blades.

But, welcome to the forum.

Hoss
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Why not turn that Frown upsidedown and give em' a break to add to the thread, if he wants...😏

DSTY said:
I'm sorry, I didn't check the date. I wanted to share my own experience with using a lawnmower blade. Thank you for the welcome
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Welcome...
Feel free to share
B.T.B. 🗡
 
Welcome DSTY,
Fill out your profile so we know where you live and a bit about you. This helps the chaps here give better answers and sometimes offers of help and materials.

The thread was only six months old, so your additional info wasn't really necroposting. However, when you are new all the past threads show up and you want to look at the original posting date and the last few posting dates before making a post mor comment. We get new folks posting on 20-year-old threads.

As mentioned, used and unknown materials are not generally recommended here. Good knife steel is very affordable, and the HT will be known and reliable. Lawnmower blades are better today than many years ago, but you still have no idea what alloy they are or how hard it will get.
Hoss is a bit blunt, but with his nearly 40 years in knifemaking and producing damascus you will rarely meet a person with more knifemaking experience. His son is metallurgist Dr. Larrin Thomas, who's boof Knife Engineering is pretty much a must have for steels and HT. I highly recommend it to all knifemakers old or new.

Welcome again.
 
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