New steel in the house

I am very pleased to say I will be offering a new steel from takefu . It is stainless clad with a carbon core called vtoku2 . It is very similar to hitachi s blue with added vanadium in it .
This is the prototype I have made from it ,

It is very wear resistant just like blue steel maybe bit more due to the added alloy , even so thin at 1mm edge thickness at the quench I went through 2 times the belts it will take me to grind an Aebl or 52100.
And by the time I was done with grinding and polishing , the spine of the knife was only 2mm or so , super super thin for my taste however it can support a very steep angle .



Initially I was afraid of the steel being too hard after I had few micro chips at my cutting tests prior to sharpening , just like all the very hard japanese knives I have handled it came to normal as soon as I put an edge on it . I have sharpened the knife both using Jons 1k/6k and jns1k/King 6k . In both cases it took me no more than couple strokes to raise a burr even at 6k and knock it back off. Finished the knife off Ian's leather strop ( not loaded ) I can say it has a very very fine grain . After sharpening and revealing fresh steel it hasn't chipped a bit and edge retention has been great so far


Feel free to ask any questions you may have , hope you will like the end result as much as I did

 

Very respectable choil shot, Mert :like

 

Very exciting Mert!! Will be following this :cool1

 

How hard do you think it is Mert?

 

Did you make it San Mai yourself or are you getting it already in San mai form? I have some already San Mai from Takefu so no forging is needed. The core is already 1mm thick and doesn't need thinning.

 

Indeed, that one looks very thin behind the edge! Is it slightly hollow?

 

Thanks guys

 

Thanks Mark , it isn't . There is not much to play with in such thin section

 

I am going to get it tested Mike , feels above 63-64 with files

 

I am getting the steel already laminated , I start with 4 or 6mm stock that has lot thicker core than 1mm . I forge it pretty much to final shape too so I spend less time on grinder . San mai gets hotter lot faster during grinding than monosteels until you expose the core btw
Yes you can do stock removal to San mai too but in my opinion it will look fugly with straight lamination line and you will be very limited to what size billet you can get . Plus I do enjoy the forging process and manipulating the core exposure or patterns to my liking .
for example this is a San mai billet with multiple layered cheeks
If I did stock removal you would see straight lines like shuns , none of this pattern

 

Your work always amazes me and the forging you do with your san mais makes them unique. And in my biased opinion a lot nicer to look at