Steel Composition?

B

beckerhead

Joined
Feb 11, 2005
Messages
582
Knowing that there is probably a considerable variance from maker to maker, I was wondering if anyone knows what steel is commonly used in newer 7.5" - 10" circular saw blades. One has no name, and the other is labeled "Sprint" and made in New Zealand.

Thanks for any help,
Beckerhead
 
Hello and Welcome!... your better off spending your money on known steel. Many times circular saw steel is just mild steel with a high carbon tip welded on. This is normally called "bimetal" and is junk for knives. Your best bet for quality salvaged high carbon steel will be old sawmill blades, leafsprings and axel shafts from 60's and 70's domestic cars and trucks. Dont ask what they are though, cuase your guess is as good as mine... so heat treatment will be a crapshoot and that probably wont end well until you spend LOTS of time and resources and money trying to guess at it. and then you'll kick yourself for not buying known steel to begin with and not have the aforementioned hassle. I recommed you read the stickies at the top, buy some good known steel, (5160 1084 W1/W2 O1) to start with since they are plentiful, easy to come by and the heat treat is "fairly" simple.

Jason
 
Recipe for Chinese saw blade steel:

2 parts lead
1 part mercury
7 parts MSG
12 parts scrap iron
6 parts aluminum
1 part steel that was stolen out of Aldo's garage last year



Seriously though - if the saw blade steel IS desirable, then it is already hard. How will you cut out your blanks? Waterjet, torch, or grinding are the options; either would be a waste of time/money/effort for mystery steel.

You could get it analyzed, however there is no reason to think that all "Sprint" blades will have the same composition.

You could use less exacting methods such as spark test etc - read up on that.
 
Thanks for the feedback. We have blade stock (O1, 5160, & 1080) but I came across these used blades at my FIL's house, and was wondering. I guess I'll do a heat and quench and see what I get, and go from there.

Again, thanks.
 
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