Old handsaw blade knives, questions

C

chriswillman

Joined
May 1, 2011
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Hello, I have been recently using "stock removal" to make some broad heads out of old hand saw blades. I had several old hand saws laying around which seemed to be made of high carbon steel due to the hardness, and the large sparks when grinding with an angle grinder to shape the broad heads. They are first cut off in blanks off the blade of the hand saw with tin snips. Then ground into shape with an angle grinder and I put a chisel ground blade on the broad heads with 4x36 belt sander with 60- 220- 400 "grinding belts" atleast as good as they get for a 4x36. They seem to take a nice edge and I have not yet heat treated them because I made sure to keep them from changing colors during shaping. I was going to attempt a few knives from the saw blades being that I have a few. I would like to know if anyone has an opinion on what type of steel these old hand saw blades were made from? I would like to know how to properly heat treat the blades, but I do not know what type of steel they are. What are opinions on using a chisel ground blade?
 
If you could cut it with tin snips, it was not very hard to start with. No easy way to tell what the actual steel is, probably some low to mid carbon. Those saw blades were made for cutting wood and would be tough but not necessarily hard. For heat treat, it's a crap shoot. You could try to heat somewhat above non-magnetic, quench in brine and see if you can snap in a vise. Most likely it won't harden enough for a knife.
Chip Kunkle
 
You may want to read up on heat treatment. The stickies have lots of HT info.
The blades need to be heat treated before the edge is ground on.
There is no way to know, but just consider the steel a medium to high carbon steel for a test blade HT. The fact that you could cut it with tin snips worries me. The amount of sparks you describe is a good sign. How thick is this metal?

For broad heads, you don't really need the tips and edges heat treated, as they only cut once.
On a knife, the edge needs to be heat treated, as it will need to be able to cut repeatedly.
 
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