I have acquired several 4' diameter sawmill blades, the teeth are formed of the parent steel and not brazed inserts. These came out of commercial saw mills in Washington.

I'm assuming L6?? Does anyone have information or experience with this material? Especially hardening and tempering info?

 

Thanks in advance!

How old are they?  Any friends at the sawmill(s) that can tell you where they were purchased?

Since you will be making candy dishes from them you don't need to harden, just normalization will be fine!  (Last time I used L6 it was to make pieces for a pattern welded spangen helm, [project still glacially slowly proceeding], as such I did not want it hard and brittle.)

Not candy dishes. Veg choppers for gifts.

Similar treatment for knife blades. I have a lot of O1, A2, D2 and H and S types.

But I can't beat the material price.

They are probably on the 25-50 year old range, I have a few acquaintances who worked at the mills, but they know way more about wood than alloy steel.

I have made some nice Ulul knives from them, although my saw blade may be different composition from yours. You just have to experiment with them. For mine, I quenched in warm peanut oil (hardened well) and tempered to straw. That way the knives stayed flexible and hold a good edge.

This is what I suspected. Oil quench and 450 to 500 temper for 2 hrs.

I'll use these tables.

 

https://www.hudsontoolsteel.com/technical-data/steelL6

Going for the hardness/toughness cross over? 55 HRC, is not a bad one but some folks prefer it a bit harder for blades, note IronDragon's tempering to straw a lower temp that 450-500!

My point was that YOU know what you plan to do with it; we don't. When asking questions whose answers depend on what it will be used for; you gotta tell us!  Example the hardness you want in a razor would be an accident waiting to happen in an axe!

Might even do some experimentation on differential hardening. Just to see how the material works out.

Sorry I didn't mention the use, just wondering who may have used the stuff , how they used it and what they thought of it.

I have a lot of it. Never used it before.

 

If it's L6 it may be a bit of a pain to differential harden; however differential tempering may work ok.  Note that in thin cross section L6 may air harden!

I just though of a test:  I use L6 for the shiny layers in my pattern welded billets. Cut a piece off, clean it to bare metal and see if it etches light/shiny or dark.

dont rely on it being L6. circular blades are made from a variety of "simpler" steels. over here 1.2235 is popular, often translated with l2, althoug L2 can really be anything.

 

1.2235:

What is the strongest steel you can recommend?

Hi Fatih, welcome aboard! Can please elaborate a little further? Your question is too vague as it stands..

 

By strongest; do you mean notch sensitivity, yield strength, hardness, etc---and under what circumstances, STP, space, corrosive environments.  Currently your question is like "what's the best vehicle to buy?" without telling us if it should be able to haul 16 people or 16 tons of gravel or cross open water or go into space.