Band saw blades for forging?

[Bails]

I'm still in the very infancy of my forging journey. I've got a million questions, but one involves the types of metals to use, and their availability. At some point I want to make a forge welded knife. I work for a hydraulic cylinder manufacturer, so I have access to scrap pieces of a variety of metals for little or no charge. To make a good knife someday, I'll need to use a combination of metals that will treat hard enough to maintain an edge. I've been reading through the many threads, and I've heard mention of using band saw blades. Is that a legitimate option? It seems to make sense, the blades need to be hard to work properly; if it's good for saw blades, then it should be good for a knife blade, right? I know we use some strong blades at work. Some of the cylinder rods are made with induction hardened chrome (by the way, would that be good material to use?), and we throw away dozens of them every day. I could have as much as I want, and without charge. That just seems too easy, or too good to be true. I'm hesitant to get too excited until I get some input from all of you.

[Glenn]

Add your location to your profile. There may be someone in your area that could help.

[Rich Hale]

Pretty much all of your answers are in the forums here,,,,Knife making lessons for a start,,,,if you wish

[jmccustomknives]

Knive making section is full of great info.  As far as the band saw blades, they run the table from poor to good depending on the alloy used.  I've had some that made most excellent small knives, the next not so much.  Each band saw must be tested to determine it's viabilaty.  The hydrolic cylinder material isn't good for knives, tooling yes.  Good luck.

[2Tim215]

Here in SA bandsaw blades come in a variety of metals but the two most common being 1070 for the narrow blades and 15N20 for the wider blades. These saw blades being used in the wood industry. Bi metal blades for cutting steel I don't know much about and have never used. The problem with scraps is you never know what you get and the time, money and effort involved in forging a blade out it is always best to use known steels. I get my bandsaw blades from a company that makes them for the wood mills and I know what I'm getting so in the end the customer knows what he's getting.

[ThomasPowers]

Bandsaw blades are often used for the high nickel layers in pattern welded billets.  They need to be paird with another high carbon steel to make a superior blade.

 

Note that welding thin stock is more difficult than thicker stock so it might be easier to learn billet welding on thicker stuff and then move on to the thin stuff when you have welding down pat

[SReynolds]

well...................John Deere did. The MAN, not the Company. And built a global company from that technique.

 

Just a shot in the dark, but I'd say, ahhh ......................................YES (???)

[ThomasPowers]

I thought he used saw blades and not bandsaw blades to make the self scouring plow?  A large sawmill circular blade had a pretty good thickness back then!

[DanielC]

These work. This one here is around 1.75" wide, and like oddball 1/12" thick. Very good stuff IMO. It is used for metal fab, and I have an entire metal fab shop setting them aside for me, 10'-20' at a time free of charge.

[K. Bryan Morgan]

I would repeat to you what has been said to me.  Buy a  known steel so you know what kind of heat treat to do.  Steel is cheap.

[SReynolds]

Mr Deere used a discarded band saw blade. The smiths of old didn't know what it was they had, untill they tested the tempering method and thus the tools. If it worked, it worked. If it shattered, then it was not tempered correctly for that grade of steel. Steel then (1836-7) was EXPENSIVE.

[ThomasPowers]

Having trouble locking it down as a bandsaw blade and would not expect a bandsaw blade used in a sawmill in the 1830's.

 

Do you have a definitive source?

[Rich Hale]

Actually to be really picky I think we need to replace the word tempering with the heat treat in its entirety,,,,And I do understand that lack or insufficient tempering can for sure leave a steel too hard and brittle maybe. Depending on wot the base steel is. 

With so many new folks on here so often. I think the whole process,,Wot is used to harden the steel and how it is then tempered will be wot I limit myself to in reference here. And for those that notice, I did not even mention normalizing and the number of cycles in a process. 

This is one big reason that I reference the information in the forums, they do have the information that many times is simply not typed once again as an answer in a thread. 

Somehow In my life I had not heard of how John Deere got his start. Another of the many reasons that I read the forum almost daily.

I did a quick google and found this thread. http://www.iwest.k12.il.us/schools/thawville/projects/1800/index_017.html It does mention the steel but really limited. S Reynolds no doubt put a lot more effort into research. Thank you....

[Rich Hale]

Back to the question from the start. Bandsaw blades and bandsaw blades. Some metal cutting blades have soldered on carbide teeth. I would pass those  up as the backing material is likely not chosen for edge holding abilities. Band saw and circular saw blades used to cut in logs in sawmills are my first choice if I use recycled steels. They both have a need to hold an edge through the shift of the folks using them. And they must not shatter if they find something in wood that would pose that challenge. I have used both. Sections of the mill band saw blades for laminating in billets welded for pattern welded knife blades. As mentioned above the nickel content adds a lot with its brightness in a finished piece. I have also used large,,to me diameter circular saw blades..the steel was a little thicker than the band saw scrap I used. I cut out the profile of the blade with a plasma cutter. and then ground back all of the edges. leaving steel that had its original heat treat intact. I ground the bevels keeping the blade cool. I kept  a finger on the back of the blade while grinding so I monitor heat and cool often. These knives came out really nice. 

Also as said above. New steel has the advantage I  like. I order wot I feel will suit the blade I wish to make. The steel comes annealed and easy to drill, saw, and grind. It also is easy to look up how to forge and heat treat it. I think that alone is a strong plus for anyone new to knifemaking. Heat treat done correctly is the critical base for a good blade. 

[SmoothBore]

Having trouble locking it down as a bandsaw blade and would not expect a bandsaw blade used in a sawmill in the 1830's.

 

 

 

 

 

William Newberry received a British patent for a band saw design, in 1809.

 

 

 

.

[ThomasPowers]

And the first circular saw blades were experimented with several centuries before they became the norm in sawmills.

There are a lot of reports of problems with bandsaw sawmills in the early years---including a report of sending to France for a sawblade that wouldn't break way before payoff.  

 

Patents are rather a week reed: sometimes showing up early and sometimes being quite late---there was a patent on the "crank" in the UK that slowed development of steam power, even though the first depictation of the crank in use was nearly 1000 years earlier. ("Cathedral Forge and Waterwheel" Gies & Gies)

 

(actually some people get confused by a shaker patent for an "improved circular saw blade" several centuries after they first started to show up)

 

So it's possible; but I would like more definitive proof and feel it's unlikely---though it does say he used a *broken* saw blade as his source material.  In a bandsaw blade I would expect you to reweld it and continue on.  A circular saw blade would probably be scrapped when it broke.

[duckcreekforge]

I really think it was a vertical up and down saw blade.

[ThomasPowers]

A sash saw?  hmm

[SReynolds]

Who has a difinitive source? Me?

 

With due respect;I had always thought history about John Deere was common knowledge. If you want it in print, there are books available. Probably too many to mention. The Company's 150th Anniversary (book) comes to mind.

 

I don't think about it much from a blacksmith's point of view. I collect tractors and publications thus  look at it from an American history and agricultural standpoint.

[SReynolds]

You'd want the book by Wayne G Broehl .......

 

John Deere's Company. This has more to do with the MAN and HOW he started the company and the early ears of the company. It's not really a tractor book etc.

[ThomasPowers]

The John Deere corp site under the history link mentions a broken saw blade but not that it's a bandsaw blade.  I checked before I originally posted.  Does the book have a title or ISBN?

 

 

Even books can be off at times though in general they tend to be better than websites---(give me an hour and I can have a website up claiming that you are the love child of Margret Thatcher and Elvis Presely!)

 

Checking in   "John Deere's Company: A History of Deere & Company and Its Times"  from the little I can get off google  pg 44

"Precise details of this saw have long since disappeared in history, Edward C. Kendall, the curator of Agriculture at the Smithsonian Institution’s United States National Museum, studied the problem and concluded: “The circular saw, especially of the larger size, was probably not very common in America in the 1830s….In a small new pioneering community it seems unlikely that the local"

 

So if a circular saw is unlikely how much *MORE* unlikely is the bandsaw?  I think we're thrown back to the sash saw. (good call DCF!) 

SR;  If you have this book can you tell us what the next couple of lines are on page 44?  I am willing to accept the opinion of the curator of the Smithsonian who investigated this in depth.

 

 

 

[duckcreekforge]

Thomas, I have that book and looked on page 44. It reads: " sawmill would have been equipped with the newer circular saw rather than the familiar up and down saw which remained in use throughout the nineteenth century, and in places, well into the twentieth century. The up and down saw was a broad strip of iron or steel with large teeth in one edge. Driven by water power it slowly cut large logs into boards".

[ThomasPowers]

Sash saw alright and not a band saw.

 

THANKS!