HF Band Saw blade problem.

[C-Bag]

I only dulled a drill bit learning that bed rail is NOT just angle-iron. I'm told it's made from recycled railroad rail.

Or recycled drill bits.

 

[Navy Chief]

I only dulled a drill bit learning that bed rail is NOT just angle-iron. I'm told it's made from recycled railroad rail.

Glad I read this, I have a bunch of that material in my scrap pile. I have not tried machining it yet.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

 

[LX Kid]

I only dulled a drill bit learning that bed rail is NOT just angle-iron. I'm told it's made from recycled railroad rail.

I have a lot of the bed rails that I have been collecting from curbside trash thinking yhat one day I'd have a project. If I can't cut it or drill it what the heck will I do with all these?? Could it be torch heated where I want to drill or cut?? If not I guess this will go to the metal recycling.

 

[Flyinfool]

If you have a fine tooth blade you may need a magnifying glass to see that that super hard bed rail has had the teeth of your blade for lunch. I am not sure if it is just the alloy the heat treatment or both, but as has been mentioned bed rail is a really tough customer. If you hit it with a file like you were checking a heat treat job you will find it is almost file hard.
If you think about how it is used, If I sit on the edge of the bed in the middle I am putting 250 lb load in the middle of a 7 foot length of that skinny angle iron, A normal piece of A36 structural steel will buckle long before 250 lbs. I do not want to even calculate the force that rail has to hold with a couple of kids jumping on the bed, Or even a couple of adults being adults.
It is not that you can not cut it or drill it but you will need quality tool made to cut hard metal.
A cutting torch or plasma cutter will still cut it just fine.

 

[LX Kid]

Searched the WEB and there is a lot of talk about bed frame rails. Seems like it's a well known fact about them and now I've joined the knowing!

Last week I had made six or seven cuts on them and it worked fine. I guess I tried to make one cut too many and wore the blade out.

 

[ozzie46]

Are the blade guides hitting the vise table ?
And yes on hardness of bed rails.

Ron

 

[John O]

Original blades are usually as good as strapping with some teeth cut into it, I have cut a few bed frames with bi metal with out damage but may have been lucky

 

[finsruskw]

Junk the dam stuff and get some proper mat'l.
I used to deliver a lot of that crap.
And yes indeed, it does come from recycle steel mills. Used to haul the R/R rails into them as well. Most if not all fence TEE posts are the same stuff. Good for nothing but posts.

Or, keep buying blades and drill bits.

Which is cheaper in the long run?

 

[Jim F]

Made a ladder rack from bed rails, cut-off wheels to cut and burned in the welds.

 

[projectnut]

Is the bed rail really that hard, or are you trying to cut it with an inferior blade? Or do you need to change your cutting method? I've read a bunch of horror stories about how hard the stuff is, but in over 30 years of cutting it I've never run into any that's harder than any other angle iron. I just finished cutting a few pieces to make a motor support shelf on an old bandsaw. The stuff cut just like any from the steel yard.

One thing to remember when cutting any angle iron is to place it with the open V down and reduce the feed rate until the blade cuts about 1/8" or more into the material. Remember you're starting at the point of a V which will easily dull or tear teeth off the blade until at least 3 to 5 teeth are making contact.

On Edit: I use 10-14 tpi bimetal blades for most small stock. I just recently purchased 4 M42 blades which are a newer version of the bimetal blades with more cobalt. They supposedly take heat better and last longer. To date the standard bimetal blades have been lasting 2 to 3 years with almost daily use. It'll be interesting to compare the life of the new blades to the old ones.