Can I repurpose this cleaver?

[Two Socks]

A question for those that know about steel. I have this old meatcleaver that somebody at work has mistreated horribly before abandoning it. I have now adopted it and was hoping I could use the steel to make some small knives from. I do not know what steel it is. It only says "stainless" in german. Can I heat-treat this in roughly the same way as I`d do with an old carbon steel file? Or is it better to simply regrind it without overheating and give the thing a second life?

 

[Ogri the trog]

If it is stainless, the heat treatment will be very different from O1 or tool steel. It looks as though it is very hard - going by the chips out of the blade so re-profiling is not going to be easy, but I recon your second suggestion of careful grinding is probably the best option - either as a better grind on the edge or cut off most of the width of the blade to make a serviceable camp knife.

Good luck and don't forget to show the results.

Ogri the trog

 

[Coldfeet]

Personally, if you don't know what metal it is, I would just regrind. Mind you, I know very little about metalwork, it's just what I would do.

 

[Samon]

I done this to a slappy old meat cleaver. It was also a German stainless one and worth a bit of time turning into a throwing knife. I did grind an edge on it but can't locate the image..

Yours has life, life as anything you can pencil on and hack out!

You'll only need to FAFF with heat treating if you go nuts with power tools, and even if you do its no biggie as its an old knife!

 

[Two Socks]

Thanks everyone. I think I`ll carefully put it on the beltsander and put a decent grind on it. I do not want to waste hours annealing and grinding a bit of steel to find I cannot harden it properly again.

I`m also tempted to take your approach, Samon. I bet it requires loads of elbow grease though!

 

[Samon]

Lol 4mm thick stainless steel blade with no bend to mount my vice at the time! It was very hard! But fun.

 

[mark stotesbury]

Nessmuk knife

 

[Dan J]

If you can get access to a bandsaw with a metal cutting blade you could speed up cutting out a knife. Still have to be careful not to overheat but is much safer than an angle grinder.

 

[Paddytray]

I am in the middle of a re-claim with and exact copy of your clever . I'm making a long kitchen knife and a camping mini clever out of mine .

 

[Paddytray]

I am in the middle of a re-claim with and exact copy of your clever . I'm making a long kitchen knife and a camping mini clever out of mine .

the 1st and 3rd knife in the last picture are from the same clever . I hope you don't mind me showing

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[crosslandkelly]

I shall be watching this one with interest. I've got my mother in laws old cleaver, that she said it is about sixty years old. I want to make a camp knife out of it.

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[Paddytray]

crosslandkelly please do a w.i.p mate I'd have a good read of it

 

[crosslandkelly]

crosslandkelly please do a w.i.p mate I'd have a good read of it

I certainly will, but it won't be for a little while yet. Cheers.

 

[Paddytray]

I'm thinking of putting up a few w.i.p's myself soon . I've took a horde of photos over the last 2 years learning via bcuk

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[Two Socks]

Interesting stuff guys!

paddytray, did you heat treat or is the black colour from something else?

 

[mrcharly]

You might also be able to cut it using a jigsaw, with the appropriate blades. Just go slow, use a light oil for cooling and to lube the blade.

I've used an ordinary bosch 550W jigsaw to cut out shapes from 6mm steel plate.

 

[Paddytray]

Interesting stuff guys!

paddytray, did you heat treat or is the black colour from something else?

I gave it a good soak in the devil forge in the hope it would soften the stainless steel . As it was eating my files and drill bits lol