Zamboni Planer Blades

[Duffy]

Dropped some end mills off to be sharpened yesterday, and asked if they ever had any throw-away blades as "useful stock." The reply was " I have a couple of Zamboni blades for the garbage." For those who dont know, these are the blades that plane the arena ice as it is flushed with water to resurface it. It turns out that these are sharpened weekly, and when they are down to some dimension limit, they are tossed. These are 7' long, about 4 1/2" or 5" wide, and 5/8" thick. The shop owner did not know exactly what the steel was, other than it was capable of holding a "dangerous edge." He compared it to paper cutter knives. The question is:- is this stuff good for anything? I am sure that when new they dont give these knives away, but you could spend a while chopping it into useable pieces with an angle grinder. Duffy

[Ian B]

The packrat in me would say it's a no-brainer - grab several!

Sounds like one would be ideal as a replacement cutting edge for the bucket on my excavator. Or, shortened, blades for a pto-driven wood chipper.

As they're always getting wet, are they stainless of some sort?

Ian

[Circlip]

Could even be HSS, but whatever, handle with EXTREME care. If one is heading for the floor get out of the way or bits of YOU might end up down there with it.

Regards Ian

[Black_Moons]

Hahah iv seen a guy replaceing those. chated him up. Amazeing how they have to bother puting 'do not sit' stickers on all the locations with the GIANT EXPOSED ROTATING AUGER AND 7' LONG RAZORBLADE.
Id hardly want to sit in the drivers seat let alone any of those 'wrong' locations. those blades looked deadly.
5/8? I coulda sworn the one I saw being replaced was more like 1"+, but maybe thats just my memory acting up.

Infact maybe those are small zambonies? I coulda sworn the blade I saw was more like 9' by 1' by 1"

I allmost think I recall seeing rust on it too. but I could be wrong.. and I don't think it was much more then a couple stains.

While they do get 'wet', lots of tool steels are rather rust resistant afaik.

[Your Old Dog]

I'd put my money on it being S5 tool steel. I use it to make engraving chisels.

http://www.matweb.com/search/datashe...51e75d5f0fea8d

[Tony Ennis]

I'd be all over it.

[Evan]

Take a close look and you may well find that they aren't worth taking. Most of the blades are a plain steel backing for a thin tool steel edge. By the time the tool steel edge is nearly gone all you have is some mystery metal contaminated on one edge with a thin line of tool steel.

[Davidhcnc]

An acid etch would quickly prove the above.

[Teenage_Machinist]

It may be good toolsteel, and thus valuable...

[Evan]

So will a file and it's a lot easier.