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radius:
hi madcrow,

Question:

A guy just gave me a sawblade that's 18.5" across, 17.5 or so inside the gullets.  Can i use the steel all the way up to the gullets, or only inside that outer ring of steel?  This blade came from a sawmill and was used to cut stacks of plywood, 8 high at a time, the guy said.  Would this be the pro industrial steel that doesn't need to be hardened (as you said)?  If so, then should i anneal it?  Anneal the whole thing at once, before setting to work on it?

Thanks

radius:
another question:  did you ever wind up doing that hidden tang tutorial?

thanks

madcrow:
Those big sawmill blades are made from the same metal as the tablesaw blades, which is a variation of L-6 steel.  You could cut the blank out and try to clean up all the rough edges with a good bastard mill file.If the file digs in and grabs alot of steel, it is soft and will need some heat treat and temper.  If it seems to glide across and not grab much, it is hard and should not need any heat treat.  Either way, I would just anneal the handle with a cutting torch or a plumbers torch to be able to drill the holes.  That stuff is murder on drill bits.  I would also stay away from the teeth.  Those things are under alot of stress when in use and get small cracks in them.  One other thing to consider is the blank layout on the blade.  Some sawmill blades are tapered.  They are thinner at the teeth and thicker around the center hole.  There are a few different ways to work this to your advantage if it is tapered.  You can layout the design with the blade tip toward the hole or the handles toward the hole.  These would both offer a tapered tang design, one would be blade heavy and the other would be handle heavy.  You could also place the patterns around the blade, with the blade edge close to the teeth.  This will give a slight taper from the top of the knife to the bottom.  As far as the other buildalong goes, I actually did a couple more, but my daughter decided that my pics were taking up too much memory on the camera and deleted them before I could get them transferred.  I will try to get another one started this weekend since I have a few knives that I need to finish up and a bunch that I need to get started on.

radius:
thanks madcrow, that's awesome...this blade is full thickness across, i think, or else the taper is so slight i cannot tell...

radius:
what about fullers?  have you tried putting these in with sawblade knives?

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