I got a hold of some bandsaw blade from a saw mill and am having trouble with it. It is 8" wide and 2 mm thick and was used to rip the larger logs. The piece I have has a bow over the length of it and I cut a piece of with the angle grinder and put it in the forge to anneal. After anealing it twice over two days all I have is a scaly, warped piece of still hard steel. I can't get the warp out with my staightening jig and when I put the steel into the vice I can haul on the top of it till the bench moves and still not leave a bend in it. How can I get it to anneal better and how do I avoid the warping?
Hope someone can help.
mick

WOW! That sounds like some strange stuff. My first thought would be that whatever your anneling in is not holding the heat well enough. This is something I have seen with L-6. In this case however, I doubt the material is L-6. More likely it is some kind of alloy that has either moly or tungsten it it. Both of these elements are nutorious for making a steel hard to anneal. Unless you can get some info on where the blade came from, and then get in touch with the folks who made, it's gona be a shot in the dark on the best way to anneal it.

Thanks Ed. I was sort of thinking that it might be high speed steel. I made some knives from HSS powerplane blades a while back and it was the same deal only much less scale. Guess I will learn a lot while I play.

Mick