Looking to forge a knife.

A

aznfootball7

Joined
Aug 7, 2010
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Hey guys, I'm still relativity new to these forums and knife making but the knife i want to make will have a lower carbon steel surrounded by a higher carbon steel. Kind of like a Japanese style knife. Is this a good idea? If so, what metals should i use? I was thinking 52100 on the outside as the higher carbon steel but i can't seem to find a good lower carbon steel for the inside.
 
Actually, just the opposite is what you want to do. The high carbon should go inside because as you sharpen the knife, you shave away the low carbon. However, this may be an ambitious first project if you aren't used to forge welding. Im not saying don't do it, just be aware that you might have some voids in the billet in your first couple of tries.
 
If this is to be three layers, forge welded in layers, the high carbon must go in the middle, or you would be cutting with the low carbon. Go watch the video again.
 
That is an edited version of the full video. It doesn't show him folding the billet and sandwiching the hagane between the jigane.
 
azn you are right. They put the high carbon on the outside. If you think of it like a hot dog where the meat(lower carbon) never sticks out of the bun(high carbon). This is a very ambitious first project but I say go for it. I would use 1080 and a lower carbon steel in the 10 series range for the core. I'm sure you'll learn a lot, good luck.
 
@Mike, that's what i thought! I've seen quite a few videos where it explains that the lower carbon steel is on the inside and acts like a shock. Would 1045 be too soft for the core?
 
I think 1045 would be fine but I'm no expert. Hopefully someone who's done this before will chime in. I'd try it and let us know how it came out. Have fun and good luck.
 
It depends on what form of san mai is being done. What you described in the op was a wrap of HC steel that covers 3 sides of the lower carbon steel core. The most common way that is done by us westerners is the center core of HC and the outer sides of LC. The outsides only cover the sides and not the edge portion of the billet. The purpose of each was to add toughness to the blade and use a smaller amount of the HC steel to get the same size blade. The low carbon steel can be plain old mild if you want. It is not expected to harden anyway.

As was mentioned above, this is a very ambitious project for a NB. Unless you have a lot of forging experience, ie blacksmithing, you might get discouraged. A simple forging would be better then work up to the San Mai project. But as they say the final decision is up to you.
 
AZN, if you update your profile to at least let us know what part of the country/world you are in you might get an invite to help you out.
 
A C Richards said:
AZN, if you update your profile to at least let us know what part of the country/world you are in you might get an invite to help you out.
Click to expand...

Yeaa I guess you're right. I never thought of that. Well i just joined yesterday sooo never got to it. Will do so now!
 
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