Steel used for lawn mower blades?

I've come across a number ~10 old lawn mower blades, before pitching them I thought I would see if anyone knows what alloy is common for them.. I might use them to make some knives.

They are most likey somewhere between 5-10 years old, I found them in an work shed when I bought my home.

Reply to
John Fly
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Reply to
nfeuhu

Cool one. :)

Spark tesing for us week-end spark testers can only tell us so much but for the most part, it's plenty. Like whether it's heat treatable or not is a big one.

Most cold chisels are like 1080, Enderes brand are 1078.

Telling whether it's 5160 or not is tricky. On a good day I can just barily tell the difference between 1095 and "6195" (50100-B) but that works because the parts being tested can only be one or the other.

Automotive leaf springs vary but "5160" is close enough for now?

Anyway, with spark testing you'll know more than you know now and you'll know more than we could ever tell you for sure about anyone piece.

Are you going to be doing any spark testing? :)

It's cool to make stuff out of other stuff. :)

It won't matter the quality. Having a knife you made from a mower blade will be really cool to every guy you show it to. BTDT with hoof rasp and file knives. I'm the same way, when I see one made by others too. :)

Obvious as anything is the prospect of making throwing knives from the mower blades because they wouldn't need to be re-heat treated.

What you got planned? :)

Alvin in AZ

Reply to
alvinj

If it cuts grass it's going to be good knife material.

You have 10 :-)

Let's see:-

If you don't have a gas forge that can get to welding temperature then you could effectively make 5 damascus knives with the addition of mild steel. Or you could, with the addition of 11 mild steel blanks make a damascus sword. If you don't have a power hammer your arm will be sore :-)

If you have a gas forge then the mower blades will be on the outside of the billet, so you wont get as many blades, but they will contain more high carbon steel. So if you want to make a sword with the 10 mower blades you'd need 9 mild steel blanks.

** Note: Yeah yeah I know nickel makes a better contrast, but nickel is expensive.

A friend showed me some Anglo-Saxon scissors he acquired the other day, and this would be a cool project :-)

Basically you can do a lot with scrap these days :-)

Regards Charles

Reply to
Chilla

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