A web page, chart diagram or list cannot tell you what steel any particular item may be made of. I know, I know, but… but … that famous bladesmith says, this page states… I don’t need to see the links, books etc… they just can’t. The only source on earth that can tell you what steel any particular item is made from is the steel supplier of the company that made that product, or a chemical analysis of the item itself. There are no rules or mandates that any item MUST be made from any particular steel and as for the charts and lists, I will not give up, but will reiterate it until my last breath, those charts and lists were developed to give people ideas as to the kind of applications that a given steel chemistry may provide the desirable properties for. Hence, eutectoid steel with 1% nickel or better would work well for high impact cutting applications like wood saws or mower blades, but it is incorrect to read it backwards and assume any saw or mower blade is L6. I really wished books websites and bladesmiths would stop perpetuating this backwards error that has caused so much trouble for so many knifemakers.
I agree with Nathan that D2 would be foolish for a mower blade, but I also do not doubt Sam that a manufacturer could be using it, as any individual manufacturer can use any steel they darn well please for any application and those lists, charts and website will mean nothing to them. The bottom line on steel selection in industry is cost effectiveness- period, end of story.
I don’t know about what they were in Grandpah’s day, but I can say with some certainty that the mower blades I get are not any decent edge holding alloy as I have spent a bit of time tweaking them to cut the way they should. I have re-heat treated them to no avail. But I do have a set on my mower that really hold up now, I accomplished this by cutting out and replacing sections of the blades with good steel that will hold an edge on my lawn and they behave nothing like the original blades did.
The good news is that an unlimited supply of mystery steel can indeed be turned into good blade steel! Over the past two days I turned old farm equipment and water heater tanks into good blade steel. I finally cleaned out my scrap pile to make space for my smelt and get together in August and took it all to the scrap yard, and converted it into around $200 cash!:thumbup: $200 can buy a pretty good start of a stack of fresh 1080, or 5160 bars! I often hear recycling as a good reason to use old scrap for blades, but it wasn’t until this week that I realized the real power of recycling. If you want to really make a difference by recycling, the tonnage of metals you can clear from the landscape and convert to something useful in one day is wonderful when you truck it to your local scrap yard.
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