All the ones I have handled are very soft, haven't tested them for carbon content.
Any old iron?
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Yep, designed to dent not chip, and bend not snap. To test one see if you can sharpen it with a file.
Funnily enough, I was trying this the other day. File seemed to remove material but same file on an actual knife did very little.
I’d thought of using a flat mower blade as a sort of heavy chopping blade, machete type thing.
Is that pointless or might heat treating improve suitability?
Cant do a better heat teat on steel not designed to be heat treated better. Do you think they buy good steel for lawnmower blades, then HT it poorly to suit purpose? Why spend say £10 for steel, to HT in such a way that you could spend £2 on the steel for the same result? That's not how industry works.
Back int' day, when that cake wasn't made to a regulatory recipe... different bakers would make different cakes. These days... a certain cake (steel in this case, obviously) Has a strict ingredient list and cooking method, which all bakers/makers adhere to. Its called industry standard...(which i expect you know)
When i started making sharp stuff... It was very much a free for all. Old files and rasps, old saw blades etc... but it very quickly becomes apparent... if you don't know the steel, you can't control the heat treatment, and if you cant control that... might as well stick some wood on to your old stainless kitchen sink, then try sell it for a couple of hundred quid......
Better to spend the tenner.
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At work the guys used old industrial band saw blades to make knives for work use. Perfectly serviceable. They made them at about 6" long almost machete length and while flexible they worked for cutting glass fibre and other mineral fibre products.
Handles were anything they had including cellotape wrapped around many times. Other times people used waste paper to bulk the handle out and then tape.
My point being you can bodge a working and serviceable knife out of a lot of things if you start with an old saw blade it makes it easier usually.
BTW these knives they made at work got used and sharpened so much they became almost needles! About 5mm deep and 2 or 3" long at the end! They worked as well as shop bought knives for the job.
A lawnmower blade might, possible, have a halfway decent carbon content, but be tempered to be tough and not chip, for the reasons Broch pointed out. Statements on 't Intarwebs claim anything between 0.6% and 0.84% carbon... I've seen one on Amazon.se described as being "made of certified, high-quality carbon content" steel and hardened and tempered to 45 HRC
Wayne Goddard, in The $50 Knife Shop, describes making three or four blades out of a mower blade.
I think that if you happened to have a chipped or damaged mower blade, a bucket of vermiculite and some spare time, it might be worth annealing a piece to then test the hardenability of it.
But otherwise, a bit something like 070A72 (EN42, CS70, 80C6, 1070) or O1 (2510, 90MWCV5, GFS) is easy to find and not expensive (other than postage) and you can know for certain(ish) how to do the heat treatment and what results to expect.
The knives that I used as a horticulturalist were made by a German company called Tina. They worked well for hours on end but got sharpened once, maybe twice a day. I remember that the pruning knife rang with a clear note when you flicked it and that was supposed to be a good thing!
I also remember a sheath-knife branded Puma appearing in knife shops (remember knife shops?). It was an unfamiliar futuristic shape. Very pretty but you couldn’t sharpen it. That took a whole tool set up, a set of instructions and a ritual. To this day I use knives that respond quickly to my axe puck.
The knives that I take to camp get very little use at all. Food preparation and eating. A few shavings to start the fire and maybe cut a bit of guyline.
If I’m prepared to sharpen a couple of times a day, possible every time that I use it, it doesn’t really matter what the blade is made of as long as it’s safe and won’t snap.
My first foray into shaping my own blade will probably be in “Firth Steel”.
I also remember a sheath-knife branded Puma appearing in knife shops (remember knife shops?). It was an unfamiliar futuristic shape. Very pretty but you couldn’t sharpen it. That took a whole tool set up, a set of instructions and a ritual. To this day I use knives that respond quickly to my axe puck.
The knives that I take to camp get very little use at all. Food preparation and eating. A few shavings to start the fire and maybe cut a bit of guyline.
If I’m prepared to sharpen a couple of times a day, possible every time that I use it, it doesn’t really matter what the blade is made of as long as it’s safe and won’t snap.
My first foray into shaping my own blade will probably be in “Firth Steel”.
I’ve little true knowledge on the topic but I have seen (maybe outdoors55 guy) checking hardness of blades which, when he did some additional processing, upped their suitability as knife blades considerably in some cases. Not quite the same, but it calls into question the idea of industry standard or how broad it’sCant do a better heat teat on steel not designed to be heat treated better. Do you think they nuy good steel for lawnmower blades, then HT it poorly to suit purpose? Why spend say £10 for steel, to HT in such a way that you could spend £2 on the steel for the same result? That's not how industry works.
Back int' day, when that cake wasn't made to a regulatory recipe... different bakers would make different cakes. These days... a certain cake (steel in this case, obviously) Has a strict ingredient list and cooking method, which all bakers/makers adhere to. Its called industry standard...(which i expect you know)
When i started making sharp stuff... It was very much a free for all. Old files and rasps, old saw blades etc... but it very quickly becomes apparent... if you don't know the steel, you can't control the heat treatment, and if you cant control that... might as well stick some wood on to your old stainless kitchen sink, then try sell it for a couple of hundred quid......
Better to spend the tenner.
definition in this context.
For those of us not quite ready to become semipro blade makers, working with whatever’s to hand makes sense at least until the skill level is improved and before I decide to splash out on the long belt sander, metal cutting band saw, drill press and forge. It’s a nice bonus if one has something to hand that can be faffed around with and won’t be a total POS. I think I can say there’s a fair amount of faffing around on this forum, sure that’s part of the craic.
Nah. No long handle.
Just a flexible steel rectangle about 120mm x 80mm with slightly rounded corners and a plastic strip “handle” along a long edge. Very useful for gathering and dumping veg into the steamer. Wonder where the bugger is?
Nope can’t find it but I have just searched through the third drawer down in the kitchen!!!! Might be worth a thread in its own.
I might well make a whatever-it’s-called.
Your description resembles a "dough scraper" or a "maryse".
Just a rectangle of stainless steel or silicone, often with one right angled corner and one rounded corner.
I would be tempted to just spark test it first to get a sense of carbon content before trying hardening.
It’s a scraper. Often used for dough. A saw blade may not be flexible enough, but you could fairly easily make an ulu. That’s one of the simplest and most versatile of knives.
Working with what you have at hand is fine, to learn the process. More so if you want to do Smithing and want to learn how metal moves under a hammer. Less so for stock removal. Only difference there is how long it takes and how much it costs in belts.
Thing is, if you don't know how to heat treat the steel, you're wasting your time. Unless you have all the time in the world and expect little in return for it. If you dont have good steel (good doesnt have to be new, bought in steel) you wont get a good knife out of it, no matter what you do. BUt you do need to know what you're working with, or at least be close to knowing.
There 'are' basic guidelines which would give reasonable results. Simple carbon steels, as you'd find in old files and rasps can be HT'd to a reasonable standard just by knowing a general carbon steel heat treatment... If you read up on how to HT 1080 for example, you wont got too far wrong. It wont be brilliant, but you're unlikely to completely mess it up either.
I know the theory, but not the practice and I take onboard your point about time wasting with crappy, or not fit for purpose, steel. Even figuring out how to get a straight consistent grind fully along the blade, with the apex in the right place, theory - easy! Practice, not so much - I have a small but growing selection of bloody fecking b******** files that refuse so far to succumb to my efforts.
Before they started to do this the company bought machetes from Screwfix that were 8" long IIRC. I know most machetes are longer typically but these were machete shape and 8" long., but above all cheap!! Not as cheap as bandsaw blade knives hence the change. We had some very inventive people at that factory.
From my point of view, Machetes are 18" or more.. Ok, some claim 12", but there's not enough whip in them to be effective. Thin blade, longer length, high speed in the swing is what makes a machete useful. Personally, i wouldnt entertain something for that job which does meet said requirements.
My 18" Tramontina (latin style ) machete, will cut everything you swing it at. Grass, Brambles, 2" thick branches... no probs at all. Sometimes i wish i had a 24", but i don't.... yet
Files are a pain to work with. I never bothered after loads of research back in the day. Do i spend hours annealing steel, or half hour at work and just buy some proper stuff? How much is your time worth?
