Can anybody guess what steel would have been used in an old five foot long single handle crosscut saw? I was thinking the steel might be suitable for an attempt at shaping some knife blades, or would it be too soft?

My guess, and it is just that as I am not an expert but know what I like, would be high carbon tool steel. Would make an excellent knife blade. Just keep a coat of oil on it. Many old timers started out making knives from exactly that sort of thing back in the day.

Hard to beat a high carbon blade for shear sharpness.

I/ve made dozens of knives out of cross cuts, ban, and circle saw blades. This is good high carbon steel and makes great knives. One thing to be carefull about is with thin cross cut and ban saw stock is that the knife blade can easily crack when quenching.

You can (as many do) make knife blades out of old saw blades.

My book The Master Bladesmith Advanced Studies in Steel by Jim Hrisoulas says it's probably L6 a simple low alloy steel.

Harden to 1450-1550 degrees and quench in oil. Temper 300-500 degrees for a rockwell of 63 to 55.

Thanks for the responses, guys. I didn't realize it would have to be hardened, quenched and tempered...things way beyond what I'm set up to do.

It is fairly thin steel, but I thought it might make a nice kitchen blade for all the slicing and dicing I do. Thanks again.

It should work fine as is because it is probably already hardened. However this will make it more difficult to work than steel that is annealed and then hardened after most of the grinding and stock removal is done.

JStor, Simply anneal and shape the blade. Drill holes, Heat it to a light pink with charcoal and a hair dryer, quench in vegetable oil(so it won't stink up your house), put in in the oven for an hour or so at 400 degrees, sand it to a finish you can live with without heating it up much, and put on a handle of some kind. It is easy and will work without a lot of equipment. You can do this or get your wife to do it so you won't burn your hands.

Great! When the weather warms up, I'll have a go at it. No heated garage here. Thanks to all for the advice.

You can make a knife from the steel in it's present state of heat treating. It will be a little bit harder to grind, and you might have trouble drilling holes, if you need them, but it can be done.

When you get into annealing and re-heat treating, you are getting into an entirely different field. More steel is ruined by attempts to do-it-yourself heat treating, including annealing and stress relief that by a grinder.

The type steel could possibly be hardened to a higher hardness than it is now, if you started with the steel bar to begin with.

However, at the hardness the blade was put into service, it should make a very servicable knife, and have just the right hardness to hold a good edge, take a good edge, bend instead of break, and easy to re-sharpen.

What else could you ask for in a knife?

If you are grinding the steel in it's present condition, just be very careful to not let it over heat. Hold it with your bare hands and if it gets too hot to hold, drop it into a bucket of water. Contrary to what some might think, dropping it into a bucket of water will not hurt it, unless you let it get too hot, 400 to 500 degrees, or red hot on the part that is against grinding wheel.

If it is more than 20 years old, it is probably L-6 as stated. L-6 doesn't have a lot of of carbon and isn't used for cutlery any more. It will make a tough knife and one that's easy to sharpen. It won't be as hard as ideal right now but you can certainly make a blade from it and use it with no heat treatment at all. You will just have to hit the steel quite often. Saw blades, unless from a large saw, a typically quite thin. This makes it easy to sharpen and cuts well- just not good for other uses- like taking paint can lids off etc.

I have made dozens and dozens of knives from old saw blades with boy scout troops. It doesn't polish real well compared to some of the other stuff but makes a blade! It can be drilled but I always use a carbide drill.