what type of steel

[leighwill]

hey all, does anyone know what type of steel is used to make hard point wood saws, i rescued 4 from the rubbish pile at work and was thinking of forge welding them and making a knife.
any help would be greatly appreciated

[bigfootnampa]

What do you mean by hard point? Are they carbide tipped or just hardened teeth? The carbide tipped type tend to be nothing special as far as steel but the type with integral hardened teeth are usually 1080 or better carbon steels.

[knots]

If you are talking about blades with brazed carbide inserts I doubt that the blade body is high carbon steel. Try the spark test to get an idea of what the carbon content is.

[Robert Mayo]

Cut a chunk off of one heat it to non magnetic and quench then place it in a vice and see if you can break it in half. Let us know how you make out i usualy throw them out as well.

Bob

[leighwill]

the teeth are hardened not the carbide type i'll try a spark test and the hardening test and let you know what happens
thanks for all the advice

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Tim McCoy found some concrete blades that had been tossed. I took a chunk to work and did a quick heat treating with the torch. At a red heat in water it just got tough, at a yellow+ heat (starting to sparkle some) in oil it got hard enough that a file slides across it. Any ideas? Tim is checking to see if he can get any info on who they were made by to track down some info.

[leighwill]

just a quick update i heated the saw blades to critical and quenced, and i just gave it a little love tap with a small ball pean hammer and that sucker shattered. so i take it these blades might be high carbon

[MattBower]

just a quick update i heated the saw blades to critical and quenced, and i just gave it a little love tap with a small ball pean hammer and that sucker shattered. so i take it these blades might be high carbon

Yep.

[ThomasPowers]

First step in JYS testing: done result---High C;

Second test: try it again in a slower quench medium---eg: warm oil if that was in water Does it still snap nicely?

Third Test: heat to different temps before quenching and breaking and check grain size to determine proper quenching temp.

Fourth test: with a piece hardened, run the temper colours so that each colour is about 1" wide on the piece and break them in a vise set to the center of each band---do the lowest temper colour first and work to the highest of course) You can also "test" with a file to see what colour gives the best properties for a blade

If you actually do all this you should have the correct quenching temp, quenching medium and tempering temp for that piece of steel---why bladesmiths like to get a LOT of the same steel to play with so they don't have top be testing the steel for every single blade they forge.