Learn Me: Cutting Thick Hardened Steel In The Field

My knife making journey has led me to some interesting places. I recently asked a client about extra bearing material to use for a knife and he took me for a walk to show me stacks of 6 foot diameter bearings that weigh roughly 3000lbs. Jackpot!

The trouble is I have to be able to move them myself and that means being able to cut them up. Currently the only option I can think of is renting a 14" emergency saw with a diamond blade or lots of abrasive discs. Are there any other options worth considering? Would a slow speed portaband be better? A torch is likely not an option because of corporate aversion to liability.

Holy crap! Who the heck has used swing bearings just...sitting around?

You'd need a hoss of a portable band saw to cut that. The throat would need to be massive, which would probably not make it portable anymore.

The gas saw may be your only real option. You will have to contain the sparks though, maybe get a few welding blankets and soak the surrounding area really well.

In reply to slefain :

Wind farms do. These bearings all had small cracks in them. It's a chronic problem from a company that is out of business now.

How big of chunks can you move once you cut them ?

white_fly said:

In reply to slefain :

Wind farms do. These bearings all had small cracks in them. It's a chronic problem from a company that is out of business now.

Clipper wind power..  ohh man.. I got stories.

californiamilleghia said:

How big of chunks can you move once you cut them ?

 

Legit question. I'm eying that thing and thinking just a small pie cut would be more than I could lift myself.

Also, once you get your prize home, how do you carve knife size hunks off it?

What you need is a few meth head scrappers. They would figure out how to get them cut up and into the back of their '94 F-150 in less than an hour.

Cutting that thing into 30+ pieces to get manageable chunks (<100lbs) is going to take some time and go through some blades.

Is there power on site to run a plasma cutter?

In reply to slefain :

That seriously may be the best answer. Not that I'd want to support or encourage anyone's addiction. 

Sometimes FREE is not FREE

pick your battles , walk away from this one

Rent a forklift, take them home, cut them up there where you can use whatever the berk you want to use?

Make a kick-ass edge for a raised garden-bed. How big are they?

But seriously, way too much trouble to cut up for knife making.

Does this material have some known superpower that would justify the effort or is it just hard to pass up something free and cool?

In reply to NOHOME :

Expanding on this, if the draw to these is the heat treatment, then you need to be very mindful of heat when cutting them. Even a saw is going to produce a heat affected zone if you don't have, say, a garden hose dumping water on it. 

Those look palletized.  Forklift on site?  Rent a trailer and take them home one at at time like Mr_Asa said?

I would personally rent a gas concrete saw and take about 6 abrasive blades.  Cut them in half and use an engine hoist on a piece of plywood to load them on a trailer.  You won't need all 6 blades, but better to have extras and return them than to get out there and find out you need more.

Small cracks.... is it possible to pick one up to a significant height, drop it on another, and see if it shatters?

In reply to Fueled by Caffeine :

Not Clipper. I really love those towers if only because they did things differently. The garage door didn't hurt either.

In reply to MadScientistMatt :

Maybe with cast iron, and maybe with a high enough drop, but it sounds like the king of bad ideas

californiamilleghia said:

How big of chunks can you move once you cut them ?

 

Pretty big. There is a forklift on site, but these exceed its capacity and there is no forklift to unload them.

NOHOME said:

Does this material have some known superpower that would justify the effort or is it just hard to pass up something free and cool?

It may or may not. If it is 52100 it's about the best non-exotic steel for kitchen knives there is. If it's M50 it's an unusual choice and there isn't much information about it, but it is somewhere between worthwhile and amazing.

In reply to white_fly :

Don't necessarily need a forklift to unload them.  Steel pipes underneath it (think Egyptians and moving the blocks for the pyramids) and a good strong rope tying it to something stable.  Just pull the trailer out from under it.

You should also be able to hire a roll back wrecker and get them to pull the rings up on the bed of the truck and have them drop them wherever you like.  Probably able to get two, maybe three on the bed at a time

Thinking about it, that second one is likely the best option you have.  Probably max out at $200-300 for the trip, maybe less

cyow5 said:

In reply to NOHOME :

Expanding on this, if the draw to these is the heat treatment, then you need to be very mindful of heat when cutting them. Even a saw is going to produce a heat affected zone if you don't have, say, a garden hose dumping water on it. 

I would eventually need to cut knife sized chunks, but not necessarily knife shaped chunks. This metal would be for forging and heat treatment before forging is basically irrelevant.

Ooooh!  I know, I know!

Seal the cracks in the box and fill it with liquid nitrogen, then whack the thing with a BFH.  Pick up the pieces and go home.

Edit:  In the name of safety, don't get any liquid nitrogen on you, and especially don't let it get on your hootus.

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

Supercooling 3000lbs of metal seems like it would take A LOT of nitrogen!

I can't see any reason to want these. The cost you are going to incur to get them home is going to be far greater than buying new steel. The steel as you said is full of micro cracks so it is already compromised. You will need to anneal it to work with, then deal with the micro cracks before you ever start making a blade. Of course sometimes getting something for free with a little free labor thrown in makes it worthwhile.

For a knife, microcracks arent going to be an issue.  He's going to be forging them anyways.