so tell me about planer knives

me2 said:
I don't know how old either. I got it from a fellow forumite, who I understand got it from a distributor on rec.knives. It was marked "high speed steel" and said nothing about bi-metal. I tried a lennox saws-all blade, and it was indeed as you say. The rust/patina on mine shows no sign of edgewire being welded on. These are shaped differently, and would fit a regular hacksaw frame if you had one big enough. It was 1" wide, 0.055" thick and 12" long, with holes at each end. I have another that is ~1/8" thick, 1.75" wide and 24" long, marked the same way. If you look on line, you can find fully hardened mechanical hacksaw blades, but they aren't cheap. Actually they are ~$10 each, but you have to buy a pack of 10.
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Could be someone makes an all HSS power hack saw blade. I am only familiar with ones made by Lenox, Morse and Do-All, They list sizes from 1 X 12 X .050 to as big as 2 1/8 X 28 X .100 These are all bimetal. They won't show a difference in etching except on the very tips. Have fun choppin' stuff.
 
I wouldn't use this steel as a chopper. It's remarkably tough for it's hardness, but I'd be afraid it would shatter eventually. With spines 0.055" thick, chopping is pretty much out anyway. Mine were made in Canada and I think I have a link to them in my review thread of my knife. They are actually about $20, with a 10 pack minimum. Those Starrets are the size of my larger blade. I haven't tried it yet, but for now I prefer the thinner ones. I just don't see a big knife out of this stuff.

Nebulae, what kind of knives are you going to make with these planer knives? Do you have a better grinder than my HF 1x30?
 
well now that you mention it i would prefer a thinner blade myself. You see I dont do any chopping or any bush-craft. I live in the city-well a large suburb. So I was intending on making pocket scalpels, with super high Rc numbers like above 65. I dont have a great grinder its a 2x42 Craftsman, but I ordered some zirconia and ceramic belts, which supposedly can grind glass, so since I am making only a few it shouldn't be to bad.
 
I haven't tried the ceramics, but the zirconia works pretty good. Dig around a little bit from the Starret link. They have 0.03" thick blades that are fully hardned.
 
Starrett Redstripe blades are ideal to use when the work is held securely, and the blade is not subjected to bending and twisting stresses. They hold the edge when cutting hard-to-machine alloys, maintaining cut straightness. Blades are molybdenum and uniformly hardened throughout.
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This is from the Product description. aside from the pure molybdenum remark it appears that they are the same hardness through out, and thus the same steel. also it says the Red stripes are "ideal to use when the work is held securely, and the blade is not subjected to bending and twisting stresses." thus indicating that there is no flexible back. Although if we were to believe these guys then the blade is pure molybdenum-case closed:rolleyes:
Starrett red stripes I am pretty sure are solid HSS, Starret green and blue are Bi-metal. but you seem to work in this business so perhaps I am wrong
 
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Nebulae said:
This is from the Product description. aside from the pure molybdenum remark it appears that they are the same hardness through out, and thus the same steel. also it says the Red stripes are "ideal to use when the work is held securely, and the blade is not subjected to bending and twisting stresses." thus indicating that there is no flexible back.
Starrett red stripes I am pretty sure are solid HSS, Starret green and blue are Bi-metal. but you seem to work in this business so perhaps I am wrong
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What threw me off was, in the specs, it says "Cutting edge HSS". Unraveling mystery metal sometimes a challange, the manufacturers are protective of thier' alloys. I would not try to discourage you from trying any of them. As always, have fun at it.
 
yeah see I cant tell whether the people who wrote the description are trying to be vague, or if they are just stupid. they dont even give the thickness of the blades
 
Sounds like a poorly worded reference to the moly based high speed steel (M2) they use. If it were pure moly, we wouldn't be buying for weekend knife projects just out of cost, well, that and it'd make a subpar knife.
 
Nebulae, you may look into a wet belt system, and run silicon-carbide wet/dry belts to keep your heat down, and cut/grind glass hard metal.

Jason
 
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thanks to everybody, I did some more research, and found that the type I want to buy do not have holes drilled into them, they are essentially 8x1x1/8" bars of T1 at 64 Rc. so all I have to do is profile and grind no cutting I am pretty stoked. I will post results latter.
 
You're going to have a rude awakening trying to grind 64 Rc steel on a Craftsman 2X42.

Good luck.
 
Ive already made a couple of knives out of non annealed files using aluminum oxide belts that came with the grinder, and it went O.K. not great but o.k. I am expecting the ceramic belts to be better, especially since I dont have to worry about over heating. But you're probably right I'm gonna have to simplify my designs.
 
so first one done (well done grinding) and it went pretty well I used old aluminum oxide belts to profile, and it was really bad it was slow and it got really hot but since T1 has 18% tungsten the temper is o.k. the ceramic belts were amazing much better than A.O or zirconia and they cut really fast and much cooler. oh also did some test and the corrosion resistance seems to be much better than 1095 or the like. not great but better
 
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