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I Forge Iron

Ice saw steel options.


VainEnd84

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It has been quite a long time since I have been on the forum and my search-fu skills are a bit rusty, so if this has been asked before I apologize in advance.

I have been asked to make a "prototype" ice saw for fishing. Having never made something like this I have a question about what type of steel to use. I have mild steel, 1045, and 4140 readily available. I also have access to smaller sizes of 1084, 1095, 15n20. While stainless steel is generally preferable it os currently not an option. The design is based on an old Scandinavian ice and snow saw.

The blade will be 22" long with half inch teeth that have a half inch space between them. 

My initial thought is either wholly 4140 or 4140 with forge welded 1084 or 15n20 tips on the teeth but I don't really know much about how steel works on ice.

So to the actual question, of the steels mentions above what would anyone recommend?

 

Any help is much appreciated.

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22" strikes me as a bit short for an ice saw for use in Canada.  Many I have seen in either real life or on the inter webs are more around the 3'+ length.  Many have a T handle with the handle at 90 degrees to the blade.  Since Ice isn't that hard I would probably go with a medium C steel.  Mild steel might work if you used super quench but it would still need to be fairly thin, maybe around 16-14 gauge (US measurement, 1.5-1.9 mm).

Using any steel this long would mean that any heat treating would be more like sword making than something shorter.

"By hammer and hand all arts do stand."

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+1 on what George N.M. said. We have an old ice saw that was used for cutting blocks out of a lake - it's about 4 feet long with 1 inch teeth. These days our team in western Quebec cuts the lake ice early, before the lake *really* freezes, and extractst 12-inch blocks in December with chain saws. But ice fishing includes January, February and March, so you'll want a blade long enough for the worst case ice - not "ideal" or "average". 3 feet long with 1/4 or 1/2-inch teeth sounds about right. You might get away with shorter if you're fishing on a river.

In 1870 my great-grandfather was cutting and stacking ice at Fort Edmonton. I'm sorry, he didn't leave notes on what saw he used.

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Cheers for the replies, 22" is indeed short, outside of special ice carving saws I haven't found any that were less than about 38" many now being 42-48" My customer wants one for early ice, (5"-10") hence the shorter blade. I'll know one out of mild and one out of 4140 and see how they perform. Thanks again folks 

I'm curious, does your company/team cut ice blocks for ice sculpting or is it for something else?

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