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Rich Engelhardt
12-07-2007, 8:12 AM
Hello,
What do you do with the old ones that aren't worth having resharpened or are beyond restoring?

I have a few old ones that I hate to see get tossed. Seems like a waste of decent steel.
The OEM blades that came with a few of my tools - TS, CMS, Circ saw - are beyond help, and I can't see laying out good money on them.
OTOH, the steel seems to be pretty decent.

Would heating them "cherry red", to remove the temper make it easier to work w/them? I'm worried it might warp if I do that though.

I'd like to cut out some knife or chisel or scraper (kind of a super-card scraper) blanks from them.
I spent a few min with a file on one around the arbor hole and didn't even scratch it. Ditto a metal blade in the jig saw - all it did was "smooth" the teeth of the jig saw blade.

Charles Wiggins
12-07-2007, 10:16 AM
Rich,

I keep them around for a while to hack through junk. A lot of times I have scraps of ply or junk wood (lots of paint or glue) that I won't burn in the fireplace and I just need to hack it down to size to throw away. Never done it, but I think I read about using then to make blades for hand tools like marking knives and molding planes. Not sure what grade of steel you'd want to use. You may want to post this question to the Neander Haven too.

If you want to anneal it to make it more workable, heat is slowly and evenly to a dull red. If you push to cherry red and raise scale you run the risk of over-annealing, making it difficult to get and maintain crisp details like a sharp edge. But then you have to re-harden the metal once you have worked it.

If you want to get into this, I suggest taking a look at Make Your Own Woodworking Tools (http://www.amazon.com/Make-Your-Own-Woodworking-Tools/dp/1565233069)by Mike Burton. You might also find it in a library near you (http://worldcat.org/oclc/69019404)

Dave Falkenstein
12-07-2007, 11:11 AM
I use old blades to make shop clocks for my friends. Buy a battery operated clock mechanism and install it in the arbor hole. On some I have added numbers or dots to mark the hours. Easy and fum. Makes a nice Xmas gift too.

Steve Clardy
12-07-2007, 11:15 AM
I give circular and bandsaw blades to a knife maker in town.

Tom Walz
12-07-2007, 12:56 PM
This question came up at Weyerhaeuser about 25 years ago. It was BS’ing over coffee. Best we came up with was clocks, paint on them or make tools. Problem with tools is that there at a great number of different saw steels out there. It might be a better deal to get new steel so you know what you have.

Jeff Raymond
12-07-2007, 1:04 PM
Make speed bumps that work?

Sorry, really shouldn't have said that.

Al Killian
12-07-2007, 2:42 PM
We have a local painter that paints scence on them and sell them at art shows.

scott spencer
12-07-2007, 4:11 PM
The last time I had a collection of circ saw blades going, I ended up using them to cut out a section of our driving that needed patching. Not saying it was the best idea, but it worked well.

John Schreiber
12-07-2007, 5:10 PM
A long while ago I saw that somebody had taken a handsaw handle and mounted a circular saw blade on it. He hung it on his wall and waited for people to ask what it was for. :rolleyes: