Thread: Straight from a Power Hacksaw blade

Guys,

I have been gifted some old power hacksaw blades (32mm). Is it feasible to make a blade from these blade without have to do heat treatment etc? I don't have a forge etc or any forging/tempering experience.

My thoughts would be to use the harder section of the blade, i.e. the section of blade adjacent the teeth, as the cutting edge.

Any thoughts from the gurus who do such beatiful work with their blades?

Thanks in advance,
Stu

Hey Stu,
How thick are the blades? Ideally you need a spine width of about 6mm after clean up. The thinner the spine the harder to get a good edge without a huge bevel. {trust me on that one } The old formula most razors were made to is that the blade width was 3.5 times the spine thickness. Results in a good, easily honed angle.
The other option, if the blades are too thin, is to use them in a frameback style.
Hope that helps. Coming on Saturday?

[QUOTE=Adam G.;822228
The other option, if the blades are too thin, is to use them in a frameback style.
Hope that helps. Coming on Saturday?[/QUOTE]

A Frameback was the first thing that came to my mind when I read the original post!! That should be a very interesting project!! I'll stay tuned to this link!!

Thanks For Posting!!

Smooth Shaving!!

This is going to depend on how the blade was manufactured. If you could be sure this was a blade made of a monosteel like M2 or M42 (= high speed steel for cutting metals) or similar with no welded-on teeth of a cobalt or carbide alloy you could grind this carefully by keeping it cool. If it has welded-on teeth those have to be removed. It's then possible the blade is a half decent steel for a backing material for the much better tooth, but not ideal steel for holding a sharp hard edge.

A frameback would be the best option if the blade is capable.

Originally Posted by Adam G.

Coming on Saturday?

Yep, thats the plan at the moment. See you then. I might pick your brain about this idea over a coffee.

I believe member spazola, Charlie, did a tutorial on making a frame-back using a jig & a dremel. You might look around the forum a bit...

Power hacksaws don't twist the blade, so I think most, like some I used for broadhead arrows long, long ago, are of homogeneous construction. Those certainly will make a good blade, although I agree with those who say only a frame back will make a good razor blade, and in a knife, it is best not to use it for anything that involves hacking or twisting in anything hard.

With some steels you can draw the temper selectively from the back, watching the changing colours to make sure the body of the blade is tough while the edge remains hard. I don't believe there is any dependable way of doing this at the much higher temperatures required to anneal high speed steel.

Drilling a rivet hole is going to be tricky. I believe a carbide drill, under the high force applicable with a bench drill, would do it. A straight-fluted engineer's carbide drill would be best, but you can probably use a diamond hone to sharpen a much cheaper and easily found carbide-tipped twist drill made for masonry.

Str8Raz0r,

Years ago, in the factory where I worked, we used to make utility knives out of old M2 Eclipse power hacksaw blades, and they took an awesome and long lasting edge

Have fun !

Best regards

Russ