First San Mai Chefs Knife

S

Stanimal42

Joined
Aug 24, 2018
Messages
4
Hi. Ive been reading on the forums for awhile now and wanted to share what I've been working on. This is my first time making a san mai billet/knife. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out but I would love some input from everyone. Ive been making knives for about 5 years(stock removal) but I just recently finished building a forge and I'm slowly learning how to forge. The billet is 1095 core with 416 cladding. I'm a little worried I might have gotten too much carbon migration into the stainless. I think it looks really cool but I hope it will still hold a good edge. Let me know what you guys think.
-Stan


 
That looks great Stan.lots of activity
I love the hand hammered "coastline" look
I wouldn't know enough about the carbon migration to answer but it's nothing a sheet of nickel wouldn't fix and add even more to the activity on the blade
Good job
 
Man that looks wild. I really like that. The frosted looking area at the transition line, is that why you think there's carbon migration?
 
A very good job and the carbon migration is what I think makes it look so good. Like you I've been a stock removal for several years and just started with San Mai. Did a couple of mild steel clad, then a 416SS clad with 15N20 core. What thickness were your layers to start? What thickness did you wind up with after getting the billet finished? Did your core layer thin down much to the finished billet?
 
Very beautiful... I would be happy to give up a point or two as quenched hardness to carbon migration for looks like that?
 
Glad you guys like it! It came out way better than I expected. I started with 2 pieces of 1/8" 416 and 1 piece of 3/32" 1095 MIG welded all the way around. I forged it down to maybe a 1/4" at the ricasso/tang and tapering down towards the tip. It felt like it took for ever. I don't think I had my forge running hot enough at first and the steel wasn't moving very much. Turned up the heat and it seemed to help. The middle layer did squeeze down a lot but I also ground off a lot of the 416 so I think it was a good thickness for hand forging. Heres a few pics:
As forged:


Profiled:

 
That's good - I agree with 1/8" and 3/32" for core. That's what I've got on order from Admiral Steel, 1/8" for 416SS cladding and 3/16" 1095 also. I've got some .090" on order from JT (on this forum) so I should have a decent selection to play with.

I must say CONGRATS and a GREAT job on keeping the core centered with your billet. A better job than I've done. I've also been seal welding all the way around billet for dry welding. Today I tried just tacking edges and dry welding - didn't work so good. Way too many delams thru the billet. Perhaps some WD40 sprayed into edges would have helped, but I've had much more success with seal welding edges.

Be sure to post more photos as you grind and complete the knife.

Ken H>
 
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