several questions about circular saw mill blade steel fact or fiction

permafrost

Active Member
has any one tested modern circular saw mill blades to determine the actual alloy ? where would one send steel for analysis and what would be the cost, and is L6 still common with saw mill blades ? i suspect that carbide tipped blades are not L6 , any info appreciated.
 
I don’t know about the saw blades you have, but I contacted the manufacture of my band saw blades and they were good enough to tell me they use D6A. Standens (they make truck springs) told me they use 5160 for their stock. Often a quick e-mail will get the information you need.
 
It will depend on the actual manufacturer of the blade (as in Sears does not have a Craftsman factory) and which steel supplier was able to supply the cheapest steel that would get the job done when. Then there is the construction. Some have a rim of hardenable steel that the teeth are cut into around a body of low carbon steel. You could take or send each blade to someplace like Fastenal (no endorsement, we just have a store in town) and have them analysed but, if you're going to pay for that, you might as well start out with a known steel.

Doug
 
thanks guys, im now looking for a place that can test and provide a actual data sheet for the saw mill blades i have access to, i have called the blade MFG in the past and they were not interested in telling me the alloy, as i stated earlier i do not beleve modern carbide tipped blades are L6 but a much lower quality
 
Most were never really L6 to start with..They were carbon steels much closer to 1080 +2% nickle or 15n20..Many were also something like 8670(which is easily confused with L6)...Ive seen a bunch of tests ran on them and only one Ive seen came close to real L6..
I use to think the same thing til' some other knife makers showed me their findings and I started digging on my own...Good steel in the older blades but not likely L6..Think high carbon with about 2% nickle..Though you never know with each individual blade..
Carbide tipped blades that Ive seen speced came back as some kid of low/med carbon alloy steel..
 
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Depending on how bad you want to know, you could just quench from 1475 - temper at 350 and bring 'em over for a rockwell test. Then just sneak up on the temper you are looking for. There aren't many tool steels that this won't work on to some extent. It's a mystery steel so you could call it OCS+ (Old Circular Saw plus a bit hader to hold an edge) :biggrin:
 
rob you read my mind lol, its nice fine grained steel i have oil and water quenched ,double tempered at 350 degrees and 400 degrees , i will give you a call later this week, thanks
 
I've looked at this thread several times over the last couple of days, and hesitated about responding to it, but I think a point needs to be made about using "recycled/scrap". It's not a knock on anyone who does it, but more so a warning....

There was a time when we could find information that indicated specific items of steel, and the type of steel they were made from. That information started to be outdated about 10-15 years ago. As manufactures sought ways to reduce costs, and increase profits, a trend of final product specs took over. Basically what that means is that manufactures no longer specify the steel type (at least for most), but rather send the required performance specifications of a given end product, and as long as the item meets the MINIMUM end use specifications, the cheapest material (steel) is used. There are of course some exceptions, but by and large, it's nearly impossible to correlate an object/part with a specific steel type these days. In many cases the steel type even differs in the same item from production run to production run.
While it's still "fun" to give new life to an old item by turning it from a whatever, into a knife blade, it's an unknown, that requires a lot of time, effort, and experimentation to get it right. Which, in most cases must be repeated each time recycled/scrap materials are used for a knife...even if the "item" used is the same. That's the reason that many of use are always recommending the purchase of "new", "known" steel.
 
MR Caffrey i could not agree more, i do not sell my knives, rarely they end up as gifts, mostly i test them to destruction, these saw blades afforded me a experiment for zero cost, i am suspicious that this steel is not the much sought after L6 rather it is a much lesser although fine grained alloy, for a blade that i would sell nothing less than CPM 154 OR CPM D2 would be acceptable to me, i find s30 v to be very good in every aspect but finishing/polishing my own damascus from 1084 and 15n20 is ho hum i have not your experience, i still have the odd inclusion which is heart breaking, using recycled materials IMHO in anything other than damascus is risky at best, after forging, grinding, heat treating and finding a crack a buck or 2 a pound is cheep insurance.
 
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