Working with old planer blades

W

wall e

Joined
Sep 14, 2014
Messages
46
Am making knives from some old planer blades due to the simple fact I am limited on what I can afford. Im just starting into knife making and only have a sander and an angle grinder for shaping. No funds yet for ht or oven., I am building a forge but is slowly coming along.😆 If any one has a quick way of shining these blades it would be welcome tips.
 
Planer blades are likely D-2or something similar....unless they are carbide. Carbide can't be used. D-2 will be nearly impossible to use.

It is a complex HT for D-2 and requires a HT oven.

Save up for a bar of 1080 from Aldo or another supplier. It will make a great knife, work easily, and HT is simple.
 
You have to explain whether it for a hand plane or machne .Big difference. Hand plane would be like a W-1 or W-2 .There are some never ones of A-2. Machine planers are another story .These are for heavy use with tool steels that may not be useful for our knives here. They're too thick also.
 
0.164 about 4/25 thickness and is already ht M2 steel The exact forging of these is currently beyond my capabilities and facility. It is time consuming to grind them and not discolor the steel and ruin the ht they already have. I am planning on saving up and gettin some steel from aldo later. These were free and plentiful to me. 5gal bucket worth of 1.43 wide and 1.05 wide blades. I was shown how to grind them bare habded and quench in water when is uncomfortable to touch. Will upload pics soon.
 
You are going to spend far more on the cost of grinding wheels than going ahead an buying good known steel. M2 is a bear to grind. I started with D2 planer blades. Made about 4-5 knives. Wore out 3 wheels at $15 each before I finished. M2 is harder than D2. Good luck in whatever you decide.
 
It is a bear to grind and I know it eats wheels I made one knife on the first wheel on my used grinder and it ate it up. I bought a new wheel and it isnt eating this one. I also have an endless supply of the flapper disks to rough shape the blade.
 
What I am in need of is the slickest and fastsest way to get a mirror shine on a blade I made.
 
Wall e,
You don't seem to be hearing the answers.....you can't make a decent knife from what you have. It won't grind easily, will hand sand so slow you will have a birthday before you get done...and will probably not mirror polish anyway.

If you fill out your profile with all the info ( age, location, hobbies, occupation, etc.) someone near you might offer a piece of usable steel.
 
Stacy I am hearing the facts clearly, I k ew when I started working with these blades its not a fast project to do. They will take a long time to grind to shape as well as an excruciatingly long time to sand to a shine. I do not have the facilities or the funds to ht or ship to ht. If I can figure out how to upload a pic tk this thread I'll show the knife that my grandfather made from these blades. He has the same tools that I am using, a drill angle grinder,bench grinder,and a belt sander.
 
If you insist on trying to get a nice finish on the knives you are making from the planer blades and all you have is hand type tools. I would try 3m diamond psa sanding strips for the hand sanding. Let me know if you want more info on them. There not cheap but the are about the only thing that will clean those blades up really well. For the price of the strips you could by some 1080 or 5160 and heat treat with oxy/fuel torch or Im sure some one on here would do it for you for little or nothing. Other then the above advise I do not think you will get much more as it is a mute point.

Brett
Esteem Grinders
 
Brett, thanks for the curt yet informative advice. Every one has been polite yet firm on stressing the fact that these are a waste of time basicly they wont really take a mirror finish and in most opinions they dont make a good knife.
I know Im just a newb and am wondering though if the blades turn out to make hard sharp knives that keep an edge what makes them a poor quality knife? The lack of a shiny blade? My grandfather made knives that skinned 3 elk and 2 deer before having to touch up the edge. To most around the area where I live thats a good knife. I am curious what it is that constitutes a quality knife to those who have given their advice?
 
I do not understand why some above said they will not make a knife. I have knowing of many knives made with planner blades. Must where annealed and re heat treated after grinding though. That said if you keep the steel below tempering heats while grinding them you will have a knifes that will skin very well but the edge could sensitive to chipping as it is so hard. Stay away from bones and the like and you will be fine
 
Brett it is true they are for skinning only. They dont bend very far before they snap. I used a blade as a axe and also batoned it through wood to split some kindling buuuut the blade was wide and thick. They make no frills knives just a severely long process to grind to shape. 😊
 
Thanks for sharing the knife your grandfather had made.I think this is one of those things where even if you did have new steel to work with you would still make these out of the same steel Gramps did as a sentimental statement and I admire your efforts. As for batoning wood no problem with the right edge geometry. These blades where made to cut lots and lots of wood. The best price I have found on the diamond film PSA stripes is at NAJA jewelers supply. Start with the Orange 120 grit ones and work your way up from there. Make a hard block say 1.5" long and the width of the strip and apply the strip to this as it will be a hard backer for the film. Also they cut much longer if you use the with water or light oil as lube
 
Planer blades can make a decent knife. The ones I made worked great on Caribou, Ptarmigan and Salmon up in AK. Just very hard to grind and finish. They are chippy as Brett mentioned. The point I was trying to make in my previous post was the cost of the grinding and finishing materials needed to work them will far outweigh the cost of new known steel, supplies to work and even cover the HT. Like I mentioned it cost me nearly $50 in grinding wheels and at least that much in sandpaper to do 2 knives. If you have a free supply of these then go for it.
 
Progressive grits and elbow grease. Look for Nick Wheeler's hand sanding tutorial and make sure to work out all of the previous grit scratches before moving to the next.
 
Gentlemen I thank you for the wisdom shared and the well wishes to succeed and get away from these hard steel blades and use new known steel. Yes it is a serious sentimental thing to use these. Im hoping to "hone" my skils on these blades due to the price of them and the fact that when I notice a screw up their is still plenty of time to fix it. 😊
 
Hey Wall e... I used to work in a sawmill years ago and started out with the exact same thing at first and likely made 30-40 knives out of planer blades before ever buying a single piece of steel. It can and does make a decent knife if it's done right and it's a great way to hone your grinding and sanding skills (forget filing or drilling it) before using your own money to buy steel in my opinion that is. I had figured if it was good enough to spend hours spinning at whatever RPM and cutting knots out of wood, it was good enough to make a good knife... and it is. It is however HARD, which at the time equated to holding an edge, but also that the edge would chip if it was thin and it was hard to sharpen, so you'll have to learn how to deal with that better than i did perhaps. At the time i didn't know much about heat treating and whatnot and just used the torches in the shop and a bucket of sand to anneal them a bit so they wouldn't be brittle, then moved on to softening them in the oven for a few hours as taught to me by another old knifemaker using them and with that, every knife i turned out made somebody pretty happy (usually to the tune of "man, that thing holds an edge" from more than one hunter) so i thought I'd nailed it, until i started reading magazines and learning that there were other makers out there doing it different and better than i was with other steels you just ordered that came soft.. what a gift it is to work with soft steel that you can just make harder later, lol. that being the case there is sooooo much more information available in places like this to tell you how to do this stuff than was available to me and i reccommend learning how to adjust the HT accordingly to get what you want... pain in the arse? maybe.. but also can be worth it if you do a bit of work.
best of luck

Royce
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top