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circular saw blade plate steel type?


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Hello, all, I did a search and didn't find my answer.

 

I'm always scrounging for steel for my welding/blacksmithing/woodworking projects, and in a pile of refuse from (apparently) a barn that burned down, I found a carbide-tipped 10" circular saw blade. The plate of the blade was warped from the heat, so I'm assuming that any heat treating that the plate had is no longer there – but the carbide teeth were all still on the blade, so apparently it didn't get hot enough to melt the bronze used to attach the teeth – so I'm assuming it didn't get hot enough to ruin the steel.

 

I'm considering using the steel plate to make a scraper for woodworking and/or possibly a plane iron blade – if the steel would be suitable for this, and if I can successfully reharden and temper the steel. (For a cabinet scraper, generally, you file a 45° bevel on the edge, then hone it on 1500 grit until you get a burr, then roll over the burr with a HSS burnisher, and this creates the "hook" that does the cutting when scraping. For a plane iron, typically you might grind it on waterstones up to 4000 grit on a 30° or 35° bevel.)

 

For whatever it's worth, a Google search turned up this page:

http://www.harrissawing.com/circular-saw-manufacturing-process/

Which said that (at least for their own blades): "For tungsten carbide tipped saws a high chrome, high carbon steel is used (1075 Cr1). "

 

Anyway, does anyone have any idea what type of steel I might have, and/or how I might quench and temper it for my purposes?

 

Thanks in advance for any help.

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Do a basic mystery steel test. I usually heat a corner to red an quench in water to see how hard it gets. Carbide tipped blade bodies don't need to get hard, but they do need to be tough. Saw blades that do not have carbide teeth do need to get hard. The carbides are silver soldered on, so take a torch and heat one up until you can knock it off, then heat the main tooth to red and quench. Probably work as a scraper, but not as a plane blade.

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Every maker has their own "special" steel for bi-metal saw blades and it change. Anymore it's purchased to a performance spec, not analysis spec. 

As Biggundoc says it's mystery steel you gotta test it. You have to test the new stuff.

Frosty The Lucky.

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Thank you for the replies, fellas. I'll try heating and quenching to see what I get.

 

If it's "1075 Cr1" as mentioned in the link above, would that be useable for a plane iron? It's a little thick for a scraper...

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