"Beecrofter" wrote in message
om...
"Bruce C." wrote in message
. net...
I looked for the answer, but google was not much help.

I just replaced the blade in my japanese saw and want to use the old
blade
for making a few kitchen knives (nothing fancy, just want to give it a
try).
I'm really impressed with these saw blades and I think they would make
fine
knives. The blade is a 250mm Bakuma from Woodcraft ($8.50). The metal is
too
hard for a file to cut and the little dremel cut-off wheels disappear
quickly. The website says that the steel is "impulse hardened" to RC63.
The
blade is about .020 thick so it is about right for a paring knife or
maybe a
steak knife, it is flexible enough to make a nice fillet knife.

I would like to cut the knife blade profile without annealing the steel
(to
preserve the current temper). I'm not sure how to do this - the cut-off
wheels are slow and I'm not very accurate cutting with them, plus it
would
"eat a lot of wheels". If I anneal the steel, I'm not sure I can
properly
harden and temper the knife blades.

Anyone have some guidance?

What I do with my collection of Sandvik HSS power hacksaw blades is to cut
the shape out with the silicon-carbide cutoff wheels on a Dremel, or with
larger wheels of the same type on my old B&D die grinder.

Either way, it's a very slow go. But, when you're dealing with heat
treatments that you don't want to or can't replicate, it's the only way I
can think of to do it in my home shop. If I had a wirecut EDM machine, life
would be a lot easier. g

I don't think I'd take the time to do it for a paring knife. I have done it
for a left-and-right pair of Murphy knives (straight cuts; very simple) and
for a skinning knife (all curves, not so simple). The latter took me about
half a day, between cutting it out and grinding it SLOWLY into shape.

If you have time in your life to do things like whittling chains and
balls-in-cages, it's no big deal. If you have a real life, it may not be
worth it.

--
Ed Huntress
(remove "3" from email address for email reply)