San Mai - 1095 core and stainless skin

BrianThie

BrianThie

Joined
Jun 18, 2007
Messages
382
Hello all.

I would like to share with you my latest creation. This is a San Mai blade that I made of stainless steel and 1095. After seeing Bill wiggins do this in Troy Ohio at the ABS hammer - in, I knew it was something I had to try. It was weeks before time would allow me to do so and during that time, I put a lot of thought into how I wanted this to turn out.

My biggest change to what Bill showed, is that I also made most of my spine stainless to offer even more protection. I have not seen a blade constructed like this - with a stainless spine -and I would like to think that I am the first, but I am sure someone else has already done it. :o

I invite you to go here for some more photos and info on this knife. http://www.mepotelco.net/web/tknives/sale.htm

4 1/2" blade of stainless and 1095. 8 7/8" over all. Stabilized maple handle.

Thanks for looking and comments are welcome - good or bad.


knife12.jpg


knife12a.jpg
 
great idea! Must be very labor-intensive? I'm thinking you want to send that out to a dozen hard-use testers to beat the crap out of it so you get a lot of useful feedback, then if you can perfect the process you could have a very hot commodity on your hands!
 
That's a good looking knife, Brian. I'm curious though--in learning about san mai, have you found anyone who has given a good reason for NOT having a stainless spine? To me, it just seems that the way that you did it is the naturally obvious way of doing it when the outside layer is stainless. I'm therefore a little curious why others are not doing it that way. Any ideas?
 
Fish

The process is a whole new game. Keeping the core in the center is the biggest thing. You really have to keep track of things.

I have done a bunch of testing on this myself including chopping 2x4's and still being able to shave hair after. Cutting rope -both free hanging and on a block and cutting cardboard. This knife performed very well.

Much of my concern when thinking about this was carbon diffusiion. I had run my processes through my head dozens of times before I ever started on it. One of the things that I did was to use a sample piece of 1095 and test it against my billet during heat treatment processes. Doing hardness testing on both helped me determine what was going on in the billet. Although I admit, I do not have the equipment to present a scientific explanation of what went on in the billet, I feel that I have learned a tremendous amount. I also took part of the billet and removed the skin with a file down to the 1095 to make sure the welds were sound and to also test the core further in from the edge.

Chris

The process of doing a san mai with the stainless outside and high carbon core is relatively new in my opinion. Burt Foster and Bill Wiggins were the only 2 doing it that I was aware of at the time of the hammer in. It is something that you dont see every day.

Welding stainless to the sides of a piece of high carbon steel is tricky in itself. Welding stainless to the spine makes it all the more complex. But to be honest, I feel the reason that you haven't seen stainless on the spine is that it probably was not thought of. The skill of makers is certainly there to acomplish this.

It is similar to the Stainless / 1095 San Mai process itself. Somebody had to think it up. I just took this already great idea and added a tiny improvement.

As I stated in my origional post, I am not claiming that I am the first to do this, but it would be pretty cool if I was.

Anybody know of anyone else doing a stainless spine also?

Thanks for the comments

Brian
 
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BrianThie said:
The process of doing a san mai with the stainless outside and high carbon core is relatively new in my opinion. Burt Foster and Bill Wiggins were the only 2 doing it that I was aware of at the time of the hammer in. It is something that you dont see every day.

Welding stainless to the sides of a piece of high carbon steel is tricky in itself. Welding stainless to the spine makes it all the more complex. But to be honest, I feel the reason that you haven't seen stainless on the spine is that it probably was not thought of. The skill of makers is certainly there to acomplish this.

It is similar to the Stainless / 1095 San Mai process itself. Somebody had to think it up. I just took this already great idea and added a tiny improvement.
Brian
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Stainless over carbon has definitely been around longer than Burt Foster and Bill Wiggins have been doing it. It's been available from Japanese steel companies for a while now (I don't know how long). I don't know when my father first did it either, definitely before those two makers.

Just trying to get the historical precedent straightened out. :)
 
Larrin

Do you have pictures of your dad's work? I would love to see it.

I guess when I said "The process of doing a san mai with the stainless outside and high carbon core is relatively new in my opinion." was more in reference to the direction that I went with with the stainless spine and the question that was asked about that. Sometimes what I have in my mind doesn't come out in my printed word.

Thanks for the clarification.

It could be argued that what I am showing here is not san mai.

Brian
 
Brian,

Great looking knife. I'm glad to see you taking what Bill demonstrated and adding your own twist.

As to carbon diffusion, I have some great photo micrographs Kevin Cashed did on one of my blades and you can see exactly what's gone on. It's very interesting for sure.

I've never done a stainless spine, though I thought about it a few times. Mostly when I was having the laminated blades split down the middle and I thought about wire welding a stainless bead along the spine. That would eliminate the problems of the splitting, and you don't have to worry about keeping the core on the spine straight.

Did you forge weld the spine on?
 
Thanks Guys.

Burt, I actually changed the process that Bill showed. He wrapped the billet in foil to do the weld and then peeled the foil off. What I did was weld the the pieces together with a MIG much like is done to dry weld Damascus tiles. I only welded 3 sides with the mig.

For the spine, I switched to the arc welder with a closely matched stainless rod to do the weld. I then just left the stainless arc weld in place and the Mig welds were removed after the forge weld was done. The toughest part of this is the weld needs to be flawless -- no inclusions voids,etc. You also need to make sure you keep track of which weld is the stainless one :)

Brian
 
BrianThie said:
Larrin

Do you have pictures of your dad's work? I would love to see it.

I guess when I said "The process of doing a san mai with the stainless outside and high carbon core is relatively new in my opinion." was more in reference to the direction that I went with with the stainless spine and the question that was asked about that. Sometimes what I have in my mind doesn't come out in my printed word.

Thanks for the clarification.

It could be argued that what I am showing here is not san mai.

Brian
Click to expand...
There aren't a lot of pictures of the knives he has made, though a Google search will give you plenty of knives using his steel. San-mai of his has only been used by a few people as far as I know, since the demand is low and the cost to make is little lower than his damascus.
 
Brian, great looking knife. The SS spine is a cool twist. I'm sure the SS and carbon san mai has been around for sometime. Its just alot of fun and a bit of a challenge to pull off. And you don't see it everyday. That adds to the cool factor. I do know Burt Foster is the only person I know of who makes integrals this way. Forge welding SS to carbon and SS to SS in the same heat is no easy task. Not to mention keeping everything straight and centered while doing the weld.
 
I think the thing that's "new" about the stainless laminates is not that the material is new, nor is the technique of having a 3-layer blade, but the idea that for the first time, makers are making the stainless / carbon laminates in their own shop from their own steels and forging blades from them. In the past, the laminated steel was bought and almost always ground to shape. Daniel Warren has also made several blades from stainless laminate in the last year or so. I think Bill Burke has done a couple as well.

Murray Carter's steel comes from a laminating factory in Japan, and Devin has made some, so has Daryl Meier. But if makers can do it themselves, then they are back to being totally in control of the materials, the subtle effects, the performance, etc.

Good job.
 
I do most of my chef's knives in this type of laminate but with a 52100 core. I first got the Idea from Daryl Myer in 2002 or 2003 after he told me about using 300 series and having the core split upon hardening we discussed using 410 and 416 as the outer layers. I never actually got around to doing it until I seen one of Burts O1 stainless san mai blades a couple years later. The first blades that I did I tig welded the package together wth 416 rod. This left the spin clad in stainless like your's Brian. I destroyed all but one of the knives that I did this way during testing. the person that bought the one survivor asked me to do another for him but requested that I have the core showing all the way around so that he could prove to people that the core went all the way through the blade. and since it is easier to mig weld the package together than to tig weld the package I have not done any more with the tig. I haven't had any problems with forge welding SS bolsters to the SS outer layers during the initial welding of the billet. just a little more prep involved.
 
Totally awesome, and great conversation to go along with it.

Unfortunately, I just can't stand Burt Foster OR Bill Wiggins... Good Lord, could you imagine the BOTH OF THEM in one room??? It would be pure havoc. ;) :D ;)

Seriously though, great knife Brian!

BTW- Larrin is Devin Thomas's son... :) Yes, THAT Devin Thomas. :D
 
The only thing worse than Burt and Bill in one room would be if Nick Wheeler was who they were talking to.
 
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