Ever hear of 10125 steel?

At that time wasn't 1025 considered pretty high tech stuff? Could be a typo?

I considered that, but I don't think so. 1025 wouldn't work for a saw blade -- you can't get it hard enough. And very high-carbon steels were common before we had modern alloys.

So, maybe, if I'm missing something. But it doesn't sound likely. More likely, I think, is someone "retrofitting" the AISI designations to an old steel grade that actually was called something else at the time. The AISI series didn't exist back then.

But I'm curious where the 10125 designation comes from.

I was reading an old article on file-making, they referenced a 10105 grade that one particular manufacturer was using for their files, so some steelmaker, somewhere, was running heats at that carbon level or above. Probably was before alloyed steels came into common use. My dad used to rave about some Atkinson Silver Steel hacksaw blades that he used to use at the sulky company, said they would shatter if twisted but would cut really hard steels. Sounds like your bandsaw blades. Those probably pre-date both alloy steels in common cutting tools and bimetal blades.

Stan

Well, that's interesting. I'd like to find references to those grades, to see where the numbering system came from.

"Slver steel" is a British term, which, I've been told, refers to a low-alloy oil-hardening steel similar to our O1. But it was (or is) a loosely-defined term for other moderate tool steels, as well. I never tried to track that one down carefully because it comes up mostly in a hobby context in the US, by way of the British MAP publications.

As far as I know, even high-grade files are still made of plain high-carbon steel. That's something I picked up in the early '80s, so it may have changed. It surprised me at the time but Nicholsen confirmed it. File steels contain from 1.05% to 1.50% carbon, and 0.5% or so manganese, but they're still considered to be plain carbon steel.

Anyway, thanks for the reference. I don't write about materials anymore but it would be interesting to know what that numbering system was about, because it appears to pre-date the AISI/SAE designations.

Typo. I meant "silver steel."

I've got several gunsmithing files, pillar pattern and the like, that definitely are marked "Chrome steel" on them, so not everything is plain carbon steel anymore. I was on Amazon and you can get stainless steel files now. For a price, of course.

As far as "silver steel", that referred to the fracture appearance of the hardened material. Old machinist's terms, again. Probably came into use because in the days before chemical analysis in the steel plants, the only way to test a batch of steel was to see how it hardened and then break a piece.

Stan

Stan

Yeah, I suspect that certain specialty files are made of other materials. Sears' files used to say "chrome steel," too, but that's what prompted me to call Nicholson in the first place -- maybe 1982. They sort of rolled their eyes over the "chrome steel" designation, but, who knows?

Again, interesting. We could have used your help when we wrote the

It's in here:

Chemical composition here:

Eh, good try, but that's a low-carbon steel that's suitable for welding. That would hardly cut balsa wood.

But thanks.

Stanley Schaefer wrote in news:5a5e6a32-0e22-4498- snipped-for-privacy@m7g2000vbc.googlegroups.com:

I was making a tungsten barrel weight for a target pistol when I was in college. I needed to cut it down roughly to size, but it was taking forever with the modern "shatter-proof" bi-metal blades the hardware stores sold. I took it home over Christmas & figured I could while away many hours slowly chewing through it. I used my dad's hacksaw & went through it in about 30 seconds. I tore upstairs & asked him where on earth he got that blade. He just shrugged & said the local hardware store, in the early 1950's.

Doug White