(Layne) wrote in message ...
I believe St. James Bay Tool Co. sells cutter blanks made out of tool
steel that you can use to grind custom profiles. I visited their
website a couple days ago, but tonight I tried and it's not there.
Hopefully it's a temporary hiccup.


You will need to cut, file, or slowly grind them if they are low-alloy
high carbon tool steel. If you use a high speed grinder you will
anneal them. IIRC, the annealing temperature for O-1 or W-1 is
about 325 F.

Not knocking the idea, just pointing this out.

If you really are into making your own you can buy O-1 or W-1,
shape it, heat it to the Curie temperature with a torch, quench
it in olive oil or tap water and anneal it in an ordinary oven.

I bought mine off of eBay, the cutters do sometimes show up.

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FF