Saw Teeth

t1mpani

Platinum Member
Joined
Jun 6, 2002
Messages
5,465
I know, I know...but it's not my choice/fault. :) What I have is a Parker Edwards damascus bowie blade blank from the late 80s, early 90s that a friend wants me to make into a real knife for him, and true to its era, it has saw teeth on the back. Now, while he fully acknowledges that they're goofy and would never be useful for anything other than shallow notching (assuming he ever actually uses this thing) he won't let me grind them off. So, I'm going to turn them from the square shape they currently are into more of a point, alternating left and right with which way the points are tilted, so looking at the blade head on it'll seem to be a V shape down the top of the spine.

However, my question regards heat treating. A friend of mine is going to be doing it for me, using the temperatures/times provided by the guys over at Bear & Sons, but I'm worried about how far to take the grinding of these teeth before it's done. Obviously it'd be easier to shape at its current hardness, but will the little teeth points end up over-hard and brittle? Should I leave them as-is and do my shaping after the whole thing is 55-57 HRC (supposedly what the prescribed HT will yield). I just remember that one of the first things I read here was not to grind a knife all the way to a cutting edge before HT, and wonder if the same thing applies here, even if it's a bunch of little tiny edges at nowhere near as acute an angle.

Many thanks,
Warren
 
I made several of those blades in the 90"s I would consider zone hardening it. If you do it will have nice harmon lines. you could grind the teeth and zone harden them too. I made one with a double guard and it really looked great. maybe this will help you leroyk
 
I appreciate the reply---Stuart Willis is going to be handling the HT process for me so I'll mention it to him. I take it you mean, then, doing the shaping prior to heat treat?
 
Any saw sharpening shop can grind real saw teeth on the spine very cheaply. Do it after heat treat.
BTW- its not harmon, dammit- it's HAMON!
 
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