Planer blade questions

ernie1368

ernie1368

Joined
Oct 14, 2022
Messages
67
My Dad it must have been 70 years ago at least made about three or four fixed blade knives from planer blades
1. he did not remove the heat treat
2. he fabricated a jig and used the shop grinder to shape the blade, the tip and the handle.
3. he kept the steel cool with a bucket of water I guess to preserve the heat treat as you know this steel is pretty hard.
4. These knives were not good looking by any stretch.
His pocket Knifes were always dangerously sharp. He gave these planer blade knives
away to friends and warned them to be careful when using them they were very sharp. I have three planer blades from his stash would it be possible to fabricate a knife using just a belt sander and carbide Dremel tools. I would leave the blade with its original chisel grind for the blade which will reduce the amount of grinding. Sorry this is so long. Hope you can help.
 
It would take a very long time and just as many belts to grind it down to a usable knife blade. It would save you time, sweat and tears to anneal it first.
 
My short answer is that unless you had a water-cooled grinder with ceramic belts you will not succeed.

A planer blade would probably be hard to anneal without knowing the exact alloy or if it is a carbide blade. Even if you knew the metal type, you would have to have a programmable HT oven to do it.
Grinding them into usable knives would also be very time consuming and, as TheEdge said, take a lot of belts. Even then the result is iffy.
 
ernie1368 said:
My Dad it must have been 70 years ago at least made about three or four fixed blade knives from planer blades
1. he did not remove the heat treat
2. he fabricated a jig and used the shop grinder to shape the blade, the tip and the handle.
3. he kept the steel cool with a bucket of water I guess to preserve the heat treat as you know this steel is pretty hard.
4. These knives were not good looking by any stretch.
His pocket Knifes were always dangerously sharp. He gave these planer blade knives
away to friends and warned them to be careful when using them they were very sharp. I have three planer blades from his stash would it be possible to fabricate a knife using just a belt sander and carbide Dremel tools. I would leave the blade with its original chisel grind for the blade which will reduce the amount of grinding. Sorry this is so long. Hope you can help.
Click to expand...
Do you have pictures of planer blades you have ?
 
TheEdge01 said:
It would take a very long time and just as many belts to grind it down to a usable knife blade. It would save you time, sweat and tears to anneal it first.
Click to expand...
Did you ever make knife from planer blade and which steel it was ?
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
My short answer is that unless you had a water-cooled grinder with ceramic belts you will not succeed.

A planer blade would probably be hard to anneal without knowing the exact alloy or if it is a carbide blade. Even if you knew the metal type, you would have to have a programmable HT oven to do it.
Grinding them into usable knives would also be very time consuming and, as TheEdge said, take a lot of belts. Even then the result is iffy.
Click to expand...
Sure .........20 knives ......one belt !!!! Did you EVER make knife from planer blade ???????????
 
Yes you can do it.
You can cut most of the unwanted material easily/cheaply with a hand held disk grinder. Cooling with water

True, ceramic belts are easier for sharpening. I use them when making knives out of Hardened saw blade material.
Don't anneal.
 
ernie1368 said:
My Dad it must have been 70 years ago at least made about three or four fixed blade knives from planer blades
1. he did not remove the heat treat
2. he fabricated a jig and used the shop grinder to shape the blade, the tip and the handle.
3. he kept the steel cool with a bucket of water I guess to preserve the heat treat as you know this steel is pretty hard.
4. These knives were not good looking by any stretch.
His pocket Knifes were always dangerously sharp. He gave these planer blade knives
away to friends and warned them to be careful when using them they were very sharp. I have three planer blades from his stash would it be possible to fabricate a knife using just a belt sander and carbide Dremel tools. I would leave the blade with its original chisel grind for the blade which will reduce the amount of grinding. Sorry this is so long. Hope you can help.
Click to expand...
So far I have make maybe more then 50 knives from used planer blade .... most are from HSS 18% tungsten steel /you call it T1 in USA / some are 80CRV2 steel same are T3 hss steel. They are marked from manufacturer and you can easy found which steel they use .
This knives /planer blade T3 HSS / have hollow chisel grind since they were quite worn from sharpening.......

tz4bcPJ.jpg
 
Natlek said:
Did you ever make knife from planer blade and which steel it was ?
Click to expand...
I still have some planer blades from early on before moving on to ordering my blade steel. I never finished a knife from it because they were very difficult for me to work with. I didn’t bother checking to see the steel type.
 
I’ll post pictures, need to clean them up first. I know two are Disston blades one marked high speed steel. I’ll follow with pictures.
 
N Natlek makes lots of blades from pre-hardened steel, and does things in ways that lots of folks see as "incorrect" or at least "not the proper way" and seems to have at least reasonable results.

If I was planning on doing a knife from pre-hardened material, I'd pick his brain for tips and tricks!
 
Natlek also has lots of experience and one heck of a shop. I regularly see him post things he says he did easily that were very difficult when I amd others tried them. Also, Macedonia did not agree to participate in the International Laws of Physics, so things can be done differently there. ;)

Yes, I tried planer blades and found them hard to shape and grind.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Natlek also has lots of experience and one heck of a shop. I regularly see him post things he says he did easily that were very difficult when I amd others tried them. Also, Macedonia did not agree to participate in the International Laws of Physics, so things can be done differently there. ;)

Yes, I tried planer blades and found them hard to shape and grind.
Click to expand...
Should I lie? To cry around here how hard it is to drill a hole in hardened steel ? And in reality I don't see any difference between drilling a hole in soft steel and in hard steel ? You think everyone here knows how to drill a hole in steel on drill press ? Or to grind steel on a belt grinder ? Apart from the necessary tools, you should have a sense when it works best . The right speed and the right pressure make the difference. It's all about that ! RIGHT SPEED AND RIGHT PRESSURE and belts would grind fast and long .......Do not adjust that and either you glaze the belt and heat the steel or you wear belt too quickly . Do you have a small angle grinder? The one that is used for polishing with a maximum speed of 6000 RPM .Reduce the RPM to minimum, put a disk for cutting steel and try to cut some steel and check if the laws of physics agree to participate in US , maybe that is problem :)
Wrong :) You don t respect Laws of Physics if you find that planers blade are hard to shape and grind . In fact, this applies to every steel out there , my ceramic belts like them all .
 
A.McPherson said:
N Natlek makes lots of blades from pre-hardened steel, and does things in ways that lots of folks see as "incorrect" or at least "not the proper way" and seems to have at least reasonable results.

If I was planning on doing a knife from pre-hardened material, I'd pick his brain for tips and tricks!
Click to expand...
Working with annealed steel...................They will wrap , bend , crack .You need to clean decarburization ,ceramic belts don t like soft steel so what is *advantage* ? After spend all that time to shape , grind bevels to end up with wrapped blade , blade with crack on edge ?

Pre-hardened steel ................surface ground after HT , 10000 % flat/straight blank , no decarburization ,almost no chance to crack , ceramic belts like hard steel and I have 10000% chance that I will *finish/make* knife from that rectangular and hardened steel ,
 
скажите пожалуйста а как вставить фото

добро пожаловать niks78.
How to insert a photo is covered in the stickys . Certain levels of paid members can load one directly from their computer.
Registered and basic users have to use a hosting site. Basically, load the photo on a hosting site then add the link using the photos icon in the tools header above your text.
 
благодарам Natlek. You can probably communicate with him better than most of us can.
 
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