San Mai BK-11 Steel question

Razorsharp1986

Razorsharp1986

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Anybody knows anything about the Hitachi White steel used in the San Mai BK-11???
I also don't have any experience with 410 steel neither. What does it compare to, in corrosion resistance??
Anybody has anything to share about the performance of the San Mai blade of the Ka-Bar BK11????
 
Hitachi White is a carbon steel with highly controlled impurity levels. (Lower impurities makes for improved performance.)
The carbon content is higher than that of 1095. It's edge holding and ability to take a fine edge are said to be extremely good.

Hitachi does not post composition information on their website. I found this composition on a different forum:
C = 1.1 - 1.2%, Si = 0.1 - 0.2%, P < 0.025%, S < 0.004%


410 has very good corrosion resistance. It is often used industrially as an outer layer on carbon steels to provide corrosion resistance. It is an optimum choice for the purpose for which Ka-Bar is using it.
 
Instead of posting another thread on this, I wanted to bump it back to the top. Since I have just fallen in love (again) with my BK11 now that I have the micarta scales, I have been thinking about the San Mai BK11. Is this version truly "better" than the regular BK11 in every sense (corrosion, edge retention, ease or sharpening, etc.) or does it have disadvantages? Is it more brittle?

Also, are the San Mai versions any different as far as thickness goes? What about the grind? Does KA-BAR put this through a process any different than the regular BK11 in order to get it sharper out of the box?
 
The San Mai version comes sharpened at 30 degrees compound (15 per side).

I don't own one, but I've heard from reliable sources that it's very sharp indeed OOB, definitely more so than the 1095 version where the factory grind is more obtuse.
 
Razorsharp1986 said:
Anybody knows anything about the Hitachi White steel used in the San Mai BK-11???
Click to expand...
I have several knives in White(Shirogami) 1 and Blue(Aigami) 1,2.
There are 3 white steels and 3 blues(Aogami), plus 3 yellow(Gingami). All are Hitachi YSS (Yasuki Specialty Steel). Color names come from the paper labels on them.
They're very good cutlery steels, and white and blue have very high purity.

As for the compositions:
Shirogami 1 vs. Shirogami 2 vs. Shirogami 3

Aogami 1 vs. Aogami 2 vs. Aogami Super

Blue, or Aogami series have small amounts of Cr and W in them.

Whites are slightly easier to sharpen and If you are really good with sharpening you can get white sharper than blue, while blue will have better wear resistance. Both have very high working hardness. Well, at least Shirogami 1, Aogami1 and Aogami super. The softest I have is 63HRC, others are 65 or above.

It's good to see those steels appearing in western knives.

P.S. Hitachi does publish the composition, I'll dig up the link later.
 
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Hi Razor - thanks for posting this; I had no idea there was such a knife as rust is the biggest destroyer of steel where I operate. I will be buying 3 of these shortly.
Cheers!
 
gator covers the hitachi alloys well. my carter kitchen laminated knife blade has the center layer of hitachi white at about 65 R.R.although this steel gets super sharp & holds the edge a long time, my guess is ka-bar will issuie it at a lower r.r. to offset the more brittle properties of white hitachi at 65 r.r.
 
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