san mai heat treat question

samuraistuart

samuraistuart

Joined
Dec 21, 2006
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Not so much a question, just a verification, really. Let's take a san mai blade, maybe White 1 with stainless steel jacket. To heat treat, one would simply heat treat as if the whole thing were mono White steel? There is no other special concerns because of the SS cladding, correct? Thank you for your thoughts, guys! I hope the New Year is treating you well!
 
Stuart, we have had some conversations on this :-)
yes, you only HT for the core, no concerns of the cladding.
 
Also depends on the cladding material as best as I can tell. If it is hardenable to any degree, you may have some things you have to watch out for.
 
hsc3_90293 said:
Stuart, we have had some conversations on this :-)
yes, you only HT for the core, no concerns of the cladding.
Click to expand...
I'm sorry I don't recall. But thanks for the advice. The san mai is from Bill Burke, I didn't want to screw this up. Thanks JDM, as well. Just wanted to double check.
 
What I do with white paper core san-mai is cycle it as if it was W2 to stress relieve and condition. Once fully cycled I oil quench from 1475F in Parks#50. Sometimes I quit there and temper.
If all went well in the oil quench and I want a very hard edge, I clean it off and re-heat to 1450F and quench in 8% brine. It is always a sphincter clenching thing, but the white paper steel can take it ... most of the time. The cladding is usually either stainless suminagashi or soft iron, so it is unaffected.

For blue paper core, I just use the Parks #50.
 
Thanks for the input, Stacy! It's actually a V2 core, I just suggested "White" because people are more familiar with it. I think the V2, and I bet you'd concur, would be best quenched in the P50, and stay away from brine quenches. It's not as pure of a steel, more alloying as well.

You mentioned something that I've been pondering....would cycling V2 be of benefit? I understand the why's of normalizing and cycling, but my initial thought with a V2 stainless san mai....it should be pretty much set up as-is, ready to go. I'll do a 1200°F stress relief, like always, but was considering doing a full normalizing, thermal cycling on it. Probably won't....but always love to here your thoughts, and anyone else who has ideas!

V2 looks to be extremely close to W1 in comp. A 1% carbon steel with a smidge of Cr to increase hardenability, and little else. I think my Masamoto HC Petty is V2...not completely positive on that one, tho.
 
CORRECTION!!!! I believe the core steel is NOT V2, it is V-Toku2. Two different animals. V-Toku2 is made from Swedish iron ore, and is basically Blue 2, with added Ni and V.
 
Yep, use Parks #50.

If you are only grinding it, just stress relieve at sub-critical and then HT.
 
Not sure if this helps but I heat treated a blade of HHH SS/1084 San Mai today and when I inquired about the HT they told me to treat it as if it were 1084. Seems to have worked very well.

Jay
 
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