Recommendation? Where to buy San Mia billets?

The New Jersey Steel Baron sells what he calls double clad steel. It has a core of 52100 and the two outsides are 410 ss. It is pricy.
 
Isn't San Mai just CS trademark name for laminated/clad steels and Chinese or Japanese word that translates to the same?
 
It was my understanding that the CS trademark was San Mia III. It had to have the 3 III after it to be protected.
 
Stacy do you buy from Workshop Heaven because of availability or low shipping price? I ask because when I looked, their prices seemed a lot higher than Dictum even accounting for currency difference.
 
They occasionally had something that Dictum didn't have available. Since Dictum started carrying a larger selection and longer pieces, I buy large orders from them about once a year. I haven't ordered from WSH in a couple years.

There are several ebay sellers who buy in bulk from both WSH and Dictum and resell at a pretty good price when you figure the shipping cost in.
 
I did notice that if you play around with the quantities on the Dictum site, you can figure out where it jumps up to the next higher shipping cost. You may be able to get 9 pieces shipped for say $60, but 10 will cost you $80 or so. The percentage of the cost associated with shipping goes down fairly quickly as the order gets bigger if you watch out for that.
 
Dictum is quite reasonable for what they are selling. I would recommend them to anyone who isn’t set up to forge weld their own.
 
In agree. Dictum sells first quality Hitachi steels and laminates. I use a lot of their suminagashi and warikomi. It allows me to make an affordable tanto or wakizashi that is of good quality and cutting ability.
 
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