Tips/Techniques Cold bending T1 steel

[Ironman]

I'm doing some work on a Woods Pixie bush mower. The blades have never been removed to sharpen and the cutting edge is 1/4" thick. I'm thinking, I have some 10mm T1 and I would need to put two bends of 10 deg in each piece, to duplicate the original. This would be good blade material, but I don't want and crack issues.
Anyone done T1 bends?

 

[Ironman]

Phew! the response was overwhelming. I went ahead and bent it cold in the press with no ill effects.

 

[Upnorth]

Looks like you found a rare gap in the book of knowledge here. Either that or people were reluctant to make recommendations on something that cuts stuff and revolves at a high rpm?

 

[Susquatch]

I didn't even see the original post. I can't comment on your material choice.

Personally, I wouldn't try making my own.

Why are you not thinking about sharpening them?

You can get replacement blades from Wood's, and I have seen blades at PA as well as at the local farm outlets.

 

[Ironman]

I didn't even see the original post. I can't comment on your material choice.

Personally, I wouldn't try making my own.

Why are you not thinking about sharpening them?

You can get replacement blades from Wood's, and I have seen blades at PA as well as at the local farm outlets.

I added them to the scrap because the "cutting edge" is 1/4" wide on a 3/8" blade, and one blade is 7/8" longer than the other. Yes, they are $40 US brand new, and made of butter soft steel, in my previous experience.
I have a plate of 10mm T1 steel, and as this stuff is literally armor plate, and half this plate has gone into rifle targets, I figured that some should go to me. The only cost will be resharpening the 1.5" rotabroach as it was dulling by the time I completed drilling.

I cut them on the plasma table, drilled them in the milling machine, milled the cutting edge, and of the 2 hrs time consumed the most of it was getting the two 10 degree bends exact in each blade. Tiddly because it has a remarkable rebound when bent, but I learned to push it further tan mild steel and then the bends went quicker.
I expect it will react as usual and become harder under impact. T1 steel plates are intended for impact and abrasive resistance, as ASTM A514 is the standard specification for high yield, quenched and tempered alloy steel plate.

 

[quitereal]

Just had a 1/4 bar of t1 laying around? Where did you come by that? Im curious if theres any rule of thumb for when a steel can't/shouldn't be formed/bent? I saw T1 and i thought no dont bend it, but the ingredients dont look too crazy, high tungsten, high carbonish. Should a guy anneal after forming?

 

[Ironman]

Just had a 1/4 bar of t1 laying around? Where did you come by that? Im curious if theres any rule of thumb for when a steel can't/shouldn't be formed/bent? I saw T1 and i thought no dont bend it, but the ingredients dont look too crazy, high tungsten, high carbonish. Should a guy anneal after forming?

Actually it is 10mm plate and I bought it at a shop closure auction for 50 bucks. As far as when you shouldn't bend steel, I don't know for sure, which is why I asked. What I do know from experience, is that over bending and then bend back to achieve the right bend will sometimes fracture these steels. So I was cautious. Well sucker rod comes to mind as a example of this.
As I understand it, T1 is a name some company gave it, but if you order any from a steel supply they call it quenched and tempered (Q&T) There are 8 grades of the stuff, similar to grades on 6061 aluminum. I have no idea at all what grade my stuff is. I would not want to anneal and change the factory tempering.

Drilling it is very similar to drilling a class 8 truck frame. Hard on bits.

 

[historicalarms]

Years ago I had extensive experience with T1steel. An empoyer of mine raced river boats all over the world, they had 1/4" T1 steel floors in those boats and would nit gravel bars/rocks at 75 MPH. another work mate & I would spend part of the winter knocking those dents back out without using heat that would change the temper. We knocked lots of those dents out over the ten years I was there and never seen a boat hull crack.
We had no hyd equipment to pound those dents out, it was all done with brute strength and with what we referred to as our "big foot hammer" that was a 8" square plate 1" thick welded to a steel pipe handle that we operated as you would a ground tamper to bend that steel back to shape....bend away I say.