I used to use E N 9 a scraper blade steel three small rivet's then run some stuff like easy flow bring up to red and quench then grind off any over lapping part plus the face . Generally got desired result ' but did have the use of a slit furnace thanks to the Scraper blade Factory owner .
Agree on the saw blades; these are great steel.
Thanks to all who have given advice on materials. I’ll proceed to the shop and as Teddy Rosevelt says, “ Hasten forward. Quickly now.”
Henry Diston Philadelphia originally a Sheffield maker branches in Australia & Canada good to know that about his saws . Shame to spoil a good saw if few use a hand saw today when I started work as a Chippy there where NO power saws it was all hand saws , Spear & Jackson & Sandvik where also popular saws .
One saw blade will do a LOT of frizzen facings. When I find one at a flea market or wherever that is just worn down to nubs, I think it's an ok sacrifice for frizzens, small springs etc. considering how many other functional hand saws I have of the same age.
Agree they are generally good stuff, There where a lot of steels developed in old Sheffield I have a book on them but I get lost in the technical stuff . The Abbey Dale old forge where crucible steel was made is restored .Bengamin Huntsman A clock maker needed reliable steel for his clocks hence his study. There was Wootz steel from India was worth its worth its in gold favored prier to the Sheffield crucible steel . Quite how the Damascus steels fit in unsure but Ime particularly fond of' Damascus' barrels if I made no study of their swords .
Wootz steel is a crucible steel also. Huntsman merely re-invented crucible steel, I have read that some credit the Chinese as being first at making it before Indians, as many with other discoveries. What matters is the amount of carbon and how well it is dispersed and heat treated. The Indian Wootz steel, reportedly has been claimed to be found to contain a bit of vanadium, giving it superior properties over just iron and carbon. A face plate of deep or through case hardened steel should also work well, but a thin piece of 1095 should be about as good as any for the long haul and easiest to procure. Packing bands years back were supposedly of 1095.
Disston made their own steel. I've had about a dozen pre-1950s Disston saws analyzed, and accumulated analyses from 8-10 more done by other people. Judging by the analytical results, Disston was targeting a rather basic low-alloy steel somewhere around .75% carbon (range was .701-.87%, but if you throw out the highest and lowest the range is .742-.784% carbon). There were always traces of elements commonly used for alloying, but these were typically low (<.22% in most cases). From the analyses of British saws that I've seen, they were using similar steels.
I've played a bit with making crucible steel as an extension of my experiments in bloomery refinement and making shear steel/double-shear steel, but working on a small scale (relative to the set up at Abbeydale) it is difficult to get consistent results. In any case, it worked ok as a frizzen facing--but so does a decent piece of double-shear steel, and there is less work in producing it. Easiest is just re-casing the frizzen, but sometimes a frizzen is too worn for that.
