what material to use for guilotine blade.

[bastedguts]

need some help on what material to use for a home built manual 1200mm guillotine blade. Would apprecite any ones advise on this. Cheers

[PixMan]

Depends upon whose head you're decapitating as some are tougher than others.

Seriously now...is this for a paper guillotine?

[Geof]

Paper guillotine?

Long blade type or rolling wheel type?

To some extent your steel choice depends on how much usage you anticipate. Simple medium carbon or high carbon steel would work hardened and tempered back to the point where a good file could just make a mark; you don't want it dead hard because it would be too susceptible to chipping.

If you are getting really carried away with something that will last forever, or at least a very long time, go for High Speed Steel. Although I wonder if you can get it easily in that length; the longest I have seen was 30 inches for chipper blades. Incidentally chipper blades would make an excellent guillotine knife.

[LeeWay]

You might also look at manuals for similar machines and see if you could order replacement blades. Then all the tough decisions are already done. Design yours around the blade from the start.

[bastedguts]

thanks fellas. firstly its for zincaneal sheet metal up to 1.5mm for general fabrication work and will be used fairly regularly.
it will be a long blade scissor action.

buying a replacement blade and building a guilo around it is a great idea Leeway.

will I need to ensure the working face that the blade shears against also be the same material as the blade?

[PixMan]

I get it...we call it a shear over here.

We have many places here that make "machine knives" here, at least 3 in my county alone. They machine and grind blades for sheet metal shears, plastics processing machinery, etc.