Steel for buck saw blade?
Rod Cole
>Hello all,
As part of helping a friend edit a tool making book he has written, I made a small buck saw to use as a dovetail saw.
His suggested blade is to take a mitre saw blade and cut it in half. This is the sort of blade that goes into a framed handsaw vaguely like a large hack saw. The blades are roughly 24 inches by 2 inches, which gives two 12 inch blades. You can get the blades from several places. I picked one up from the local Woodcraft store, 18 tpi filed rip.
I like the saw, but not the blade. It is too thick, 0.03 inches and does not cut as smoothly as I'd like. I need to see if taking out some set helps (took out a little, might take out a bit more).
Anyway, I'm wondering about just buying a piece of steel and getting it filed into a saw blade at the local saw sharpening place.
I see that LN uses Swedish spring steel, ~50 on the Rockwell scale, something like 0.02 inch for their dovetail saw and 0.015 for their gent saw (have to double check, but something like that).
Given that in a buck saw the blade is under tension a thin blade should be ok. What might I look for 0.02 in, 0.15 inch, does it really matter?
Is there some other type of steel this would work fine?
I presume some calls would find a source for a blank of steel, but if someone wants to offer up a suggested source, it might be helpful.
Any pit falls to be aware of?
Thanks,
Rod Cole
