[Crex]

Ray's preaching pretty much what I try to instill in my new students. You want to become a good knifemaker....practice with good known materials. I see all the time where folks are advised that forging railroad spikes into knives is good practice for becoming a bladesmith. Well, it will help you become a good spike smith, but won't teach you much about making a good knife. Way more to it than beating up a piece of hot steel.

That being said, I enjoy experimenting with the "mystery" steels just to see what I can get out of them. Lot of the old "Gator Backs" were pretty good steel, however this also depended on the mfgr. specs - not all equal. And as Ray said, to get best performance you will need to re-heattreat which will require time testing/learning what that particular sawblade steel needs to reach best performance. This can be a very steep learning curve for the inexperienced. Where as using known steel, your case 1095, has known recipe for success just follow instructions advantages.

If you have the space and inclination save the sawblades for later. As you get better as a knifemaker you will probably want to dabble in the patternwelded (damascus) world. Most sawblades are made of steels with a little nickel in the mix making them ideal to mix with simple 10XX series hi carb steels for the layered stuff. In this instance you will find it is not "too thin".
Have fun with your adventure and keep us up to date on your progress.
Merry Christmas!