Ideal San-Mai?

tallwingedgoat

tallwingedgoat

Joined
Jan 13, 1999
Messages
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San-Mai knives are not very common in North America. In the past we've had Morseth and Cold Steel, and now Muray Carter, but the idea doesn't seem to catch on. It seems like we are more obsessed with the next super-homogenous steel rather than finding the ideal steel sandwich.

If you could have your ideal 3 layer knife, what would your choice of materials be? I'm thinking O-6 for the core and some low carbon stainless like 420 for the sides.
 
The problem with a really soft shell is that the blade becomes much weaker. This means that it is as a whole much easier to bend, and the edge is easier to ripple. I would like to see something like CPM-15V / CPM-3V (65 / 58 RC), or CPM-S90V/CPM-S30V (63-64 / 58-59 RC), or as an extreme, CPM REX 121 / S7 (70-72 / 57 RC).

The shell materials will allow a very high toughness at a high RC (55+RC), and thus maintain a very high level of strength. The core materials will offer the limits of hardness and wear resistance to allow ultimate edges (cross section) and high edge retention.

However even with the shell, those core materials may still rupture on harder work. If this is the case then you would be forced to swap out softer and lower allow materials for the cores. However Murray Carter runs very high hardness cores on 11"+ blades, so I think it may be possible for wood working blades.

-Cliff
 
CPM3V/CMP3V/CPM3V ;)

I think san mai construction these days is obsolete. Like Damascus, I think it is a relic from the days when there wasn't enough good steel to make a whole blade out of.

If you need stain resistance, S30V/S30V/S30V :)

...or even 440C/440C/440C.
 
Damascus is much more of an Art form, but FAR from obsolete.....for myself I could sit there and stare at the beatiful wonderous patterns (prefer Mosaic) for hours.

I am still in my learning stages when it comes to the vast number of different types/grades/hardness/edge retention of metals there are available....but I will give it a shot (you can even REALLY laugh if Im way off base, let me know too):

S30V/Talonite/AUS-6 (Dont know how well, or if at all, Talonite can co-exist, but....)

....now you can laugh :D
 
Not bad, I myself was thinking about a
chrome/ceramic/chrome
mix. Wonder if it would work? Chrome has great shock absorbion but NO edge holding. Ceramic(or Talonite) is the reverse, but not as bad.
Together they should cancel out each others's weaknesses.
 
i thought that the japanese did it by having a high carbon V shape of steel with a much softer core pounded in. I've not seen a japanese sword created the way CS described so
 
The Japanese had different means of layering steel.

The most common is a "super-fine" Damascus style of folded layers.
This is the high end of sword-smithing.

On the opposite end is a manner of welding a small "wedge" of hard steel to a bar of soft steel. It would be shaped and sharpened with only the cutting edge, well, able to hold an edge. This is known as the CHEAP VERSION of Japanese swords.

San Mai is somewhere in between.
 
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