Cutting railroad rail with a bandsaw

Why not try a hacksaw first? You ought to be able to get a pretty good idea of how well it will cut without going through the exercise (to put it mildly) of moving it to the band saw.

Set up for friction sawing, a bandsaw can cut darn near any hardness. But if not set up for friction sawing (absurdly high blade speeds, does what the name implies, DAGS) you'll probably need to experiment and see how the hardest teeth you stock do on a chunk of the stuff. Or set one up for friction-sawing, and have that in your arsenal for the future.

I think they only work harden on top , where the wheel pounds on it . I have a piece of smaller rail I made a mini-anvil with , had no problem cutting the end off with a bimetal band . Try one , cut it lying on it's side to present the thinner section(s) to the blade . -- Snag

I realize you just mean making a test, but I read a book about a Navajo silverworker years ago -- the guy was supposed to be the best

-- and he described how he acquired his railroad-track anvil.

He went out to an abandoned rail line and picked out one that looked nice. Then he pulled out his hacksaw, built a campfire and unrolled his bedroll, and spent the next two days cutting off the section of track.

FWIW, railroad rails are made of hypereutectoid (excess carbon) pearlitic steel that work-hardens to around 500 Bhn -- equivalent to

That's pretty hard for cutting with a steel blade.

Yes, thanks. I saw advice somewhere to cut them upside down, to start out with softer material. I will do it that way. My bandsaw blades are bimeetal, 1 inch wide Starrett blades.

Patience is, indeed, a virtue.

Unless you have to make mortgage payments on your hogan. d8-)

Plasma cuts cleanly to the recommended thickness, but will cut much, much thicker stock if you want it to.

Wouldn't a plasma cutter do the job quicker and more easily, except with regard to later cleanup? (if you do clean it up) You could use that to cut the horns, too. Preshaping might get you a better price.

"Ignoramus6946" wrote in message news:P7Gdnf3l_Pg7Q3rMnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@giganews.com...

Lay it on its side. Cut the base and web with a torch. Quench with water. Strike top with heavy sledgehammer...

I live in the real world, I need to cut these rails cleanly and cheaply, a plasma cutter will do neither.

If so, it'd be the top surface. Flip it upside down and cut from the bottom side first, maybe it'll crack through the last bit.

Perhaps a carbide tooth blade would do the job if one is available in that blade size.

And what I recall learning as a child....the reason there are so many wheels around a rail yard is they are deliberately made softer than the rails; wheels are easier to replace...

A long-dead machinist friend once found some OLD two-piece rail sticking out of the ground. He cut off pieces and donated them to a museum in Pennsylvania. ISTM he said they figured out they were Civil War era.

Rolling rails was a real challenge in the early days. At the beginning of rail, they were wooden rails with wrought-iron strips on top. Then there were a couple of interim steps -- I think the two-piece was one of them -- as steel mills developed the capacity to roll the kinds of rails we have today.

It was a major impetus to the development of steelmaking and rolling-mill work. Like firearms and steam power, the demand for rails was a primary motivating force that drove the modernization of several metal producing and metalworking industries.

Time to start looking for a surplus big-ass plasma cutter.

Yah..that should work too.

How much/far in do they work harden?

I would try cutting them across the top with an abrasive slitting blade for maybe 1/4 to 1/2 inch deep and then finish up with a band saw. My

I don't know specifically, Leon, but it's usually described as being fairly shallow.

You might be surprised at how they cut. My "anvil" is a piece of track about 8" long, which was cut, originally, with a big mutha O/A cutting torch. I took my big mutha Milwaukee 6", 6.000 rpm angle-head grinder snd ground off the edges, plus I ground the track surface smooth.

I couldn't believe how tough it was to grind. My Milwaukee is the model they use for grinding construction and bridge I-beams for welding, and it usually goes through structural steel like butter.