Wu-Tang Clan Pizza Cutter! (Made From an Old Table Saw Blade)

In this video I'm going to show you how to make a wu-tang clan inspired pizza cutter from an old table saw blade!

You'll need the following supplies:

an old table-saw blade

metal cutting bandsaw (or another tool to cut metal)

palm sander with 120 grit sandpaper

rotary tool/dremel with a granding stone bit

belt grinder

a small table-top vice

a small forge

pliers to hold the pizza cutter

a container full of corn oil

small toaster oven

small c-clamp

a table top buffer (with green polish)

a piece of leather to strop the blade

optional: a pizza to test it on!

Now that we that out of the way, lets get started!

Step 1: Find an Old Table-saw Blade

Your first step is to find an old table-saw blade and draw out the outline of the wu-tang clan logo. use the hole in the blade to your advantage as seen in the picture. (just keep telling yourself... "it's for the children.")

Step 2: Grab Your Metal Cutting Bandsaw

its now time to rough cut the shape using a metal cutting bandsaw.

Step 3: Rough Cutting the Shape Out of the Blade.

Using steady pressure, slowly cut around the outline of the logo. In the harder to reach spots, I use the back end of the teeth on the blade to rough the round areas of the logo. You won't be able to get it perfect, but it'll be good enough to move on to the next step.

Step 4: Rotary Tool Time!

in this step, I used my cheap rotary tool (with a grinding stone bit) to really grind out the hard to reach areas that were cut roughly on the bandsaw. While grinding, I use a small bench vice to hold the piece in place and to move as necessary.

Step 5: Seeing How It Feels in the Hand

now that the detailed shaping is done, lets see how it feels in the hand. If there are rough spots, use the rotary tool again, and keep testing until it feels right in your hand.

Step 6: Belt Sander Time!

Now it's time to move over to the belt sander. I used a 120 grit belt to sand down to the template outline, grind the straight areas and made the cutting side nice and round.

Step 7: Using the Palm Sander

next I lay the blade flat on my work bench and use my palm sander with 120 grit to smooth out the surface of the blade before the heat treatment (it's easier now before the metal gets hardened)

Step 8: Putting a Bevel on the Cutter

here is the last step before the heat treat!

here I use the same 120 grit belt to carefully put a bevel on the cutting side of the blade. I get it to about 80-90 percent thickness of the final bevel in order to avoid the thin bevel warping during the heat treatment.

Step 9: Bringing the Heat!

Now its time to fire up the forge!

I let it heat up and put a fire brick in the back to trap more of the heat inside.

PRO TIP: Use long tongs/pliers if you value your arm hair.

Once the forge is up to temperature, put the blade in bevel-side first. keep it in there until its glowing like the pic above. One way to test if its up to the right temperature, is testing if its magnetic. if the magnet sticks, it needs to be a little hotter. if it doesn't stick, it'd ready for the next step!

PRO TIP: obviously be super careful if you use the magnet to test the blade. you can go to a hardware store and get a small magnet on a long telescoping pole for not much money...or at least cheaper than a trip to the burn unit in the ER.

Step 10: Quenching the Blade

Have a container of corn oil at the ready. For me, I filled an empty pain can with it.

when you find out that its the right temp, quickly dunk it in the oil and keep it in there for at least 45-60 seconds. once you pull it out of the oil, you can use a hand file and run it down the bevel side to see if it "skates" over the metal as opposed to biting in the metal.

If the file skates, its time to temper the metal in an oven!

Step 11: Tempering the Blade

Its time to temper the blade!

for this I use a small toaster oven I have at my shop for blade tempering. If you don't have an extra toaster, please ask permission before tempering your sweet wu-tang pizza blade.

For tempering, I turn the oven on to 400 degrees and leave the blade in for 2 hours and then let cool to room temperature.

Because of the heat treat, the metal is super hard and brittle. By doing this step, it makes the metal slightly softer, but still have the ability to hold a cutting edge.

ATTENTION! The second picture attached is my hand putting the blade IN the oven and not pulling it out after heat treat. Once the blade is in the oven for an hour, its going be very hot, please use the tongs/pliers you used during the forge step to grab the hot blade out of the oven.

Step 12: Sanding of the Carbonization From the Heat Treat

The next step is to use a small c-clamp and attach the blade to a flat surface. Once it's firmly in place, grab your palm sander again and repeat the step of sanding both flat sides of the blade to clear off any carbonization that maybe still on the blade.

Step 13: Grinding the Final Bevel on the Blade.

Now back at the belt grinder, I use a 400 grit belt to finish off the bevel to the final cutting thickness. By doing this, it will be sharp, but in a few steps, I'll show you how to make it razor sharp. (or at least sharp enough to cut the hair on my arm off with ease)

Step 14: Buffing and Polishing Up the Blade.

Now I take the blade over to my tabletop buffing/polishing wheel.

please use caution during this step. I'm experienced using my buffer and felt comfortable polishing the blade. just know that if you don't know what you're doing with a high speed buffer, it could rip the blade out of your hands and throw it across your shop, or even worse, into you. so please use all the proper safety precautions to avoid injury.

now that the blade is nice and shiny, lets make it super sharp! on to the next step!

Step 15: Stropping the Blade With Leather.

Time for the final sharpening stage. Here, I used my electric leather strop on my sharpener. This machine is a convenience and not necessary. You can use almost any piece of leather for this step. I would recommend using some stropping compound to give you the sharpest edge possible.

Step 16: Testing the Sharpness!

I know you can use a piece of paper for testing out a sharp blade, but for video sake, cutting the hairs off of your arm looks a lot cooler!

If you've sharpened the blade accordingly, you should have no problem CAREFULLY cutting a piece of paper with it. Or if you are more adventurous, cutting the hair off your arm!