Thread: Cuttinn a power hacksaw blade

Plasma cutter maybe. Whatever you use you are going to certainly alter the temper.
What do you want to make out of it?

Mainly carving knives.

You might be better off annealing the blade to allow you to work and shape it and then re-temper. To be honest i don't even know if it is possible to anneal and retemper a hacksaw blade. We used to grind them into knives for cutting conveyor belt. I don't recall ever sharpening them once the edge was ground and honed.

Tiger

I would anneal it and then get one of those thin fibre metal cutting circular discs. Bunnings now have them in a larger size than the original 100mm.

I have an old Ryobi contractors saw which is now dedicated to metal cutting with one of these discs. I had to stuff around the disc to get it to fit the arbor, but it works fine.

Shape and sharpen then temper.

Alternatively a metal blade on the BS.

Originally Posted by Tiger

I want to cut a power hacksaw blade lengthwise, I fear that an angle grinder could be too aggressive and destroy the temper of the blade, what other options are available to cut through these blades?

I assume its a high speed steel blade ,so I would use an ultra thin cutting disc in a 4' angle grinder .Just go easy and you wont upset the temper of the material .The ultra thin will cut it easily and give you a lot of control.
To cut it straight clamp it between a piece of piece of steel with a straight edge and onto a bench, and use the straight edge as a guide.
Be aware that some power hack saw blades have high speed steel teeth only and the rest of the blade is some thing else ie: they are Bi-metal blades.

Kev.

Power hacksaw blades are brittle and unsuitable for knives unless you heat treat them

Hi all, Why don't you give some thought to using a diamond or carbide coated "rod saw" blade in an ordinary hacksaw frame? They will cut all sorts of things, cut cool & are quite cheap! Cheers, Les.

This works for me.

I don't want to be a wet blanket, but it seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to when you can purchage anealed carbon steel such as gauge plate

i second that
gauge plate is great stuff , i have made scrapers , and turning chisel tips from the stuff .
easy to work with shape it get it how you want it drill it and when its correct heat to cherry red then quench and the stuff is hard as glass.
can be got from specialist steel people bohler or some thing like that is where i got mine .
was a long time ago but i think it was 1"x 3/16" x 12" the bit i bought anyway comes in a multitude of sizes and it is surface ground dead flat and square on all sides

Thanks, guys, I've actually got 3 or 4 of these blades and would like to do something with them, I was under the impression that they were good quality steel so might try cutting them with a thin angle grinder disc.

I would run a small groove length ways down each side and snap the blade. You can clean it up afterward.

I use these blades for gasket scrapers when working on cars. They are very hard and brittle and I wrap them in a rag and snap them. To snap one not wrapped in rag would be dangerous and just asking for trouble. With a ground edge they are very sharp and hold that edge really well.