Stainless San-Mai ApexUltra Knife Making Steel Billet

Hand-forged San-Mai knife making steel billet.

ApexUltra carbon steel core and 420 stainless clad with nickel. Please select a size from the drop-down box. 

ApexUltra is a low alloy steel specifically designed for handmade knives. It features fine carbides that make it easy to finish and sharpen, and its high purity and well-balanced composition result in exceptional toughness and edge retention. This steel is said to be the toughest of all knife steels in the 66+ HRC range.

These billets are intended to be ground to shape, perfect for stock removal makers in pursue of the character you get from hand forged steel, the pattern and the texture that pre laminate steel usually doesn't have. I like to keep the texture on the flats as you can see from the sample pictures but with care to grind symmetrically, it can be flattened. They come as forged and slightly oversize, you will need to grind the edge of the billet back to good material.

All our billets are forged in a zero-atmosphere environment to ensure perfect welds. We pride ourselves in well-centred cores, consistent patterning, and excellent quality steel.

Once heat treated, ground and etched, the cutting edge will be black followed by a bright nickel line and then a beautiful carbon migration pattern into the lighter colour stainless. As you can see from the sample pictures, the look can be changed with different polishing and etching processes. Please take a look at the using our billets page for more info and feel free to email if you have any questions.

These billets have been annealed and can be drilled with decent hss drills although we’d recommend carbide-tipped drills.

Heat treat info for 80crv2 core knife making steel billets:

Please note stainless clad billets are a little more sensitive in heat treat than the Dark-mai so extra care must be taken to avoid cracks along the core. We recommend 45 degree bevels all the way around, sanded perpendicular to the blade NOT along the length. Bevelling the edges will reduce the force pulling the core apart while the austenite to martensite transformation is occurring in the 80crv2.

Normalise by heating to 860c and air cool to black, hold at 830c for 10 minute and quench in medium oil. Temper immediately for 2 x 2-hour cycles at 195c for approximately 61 HRC.

This steel has good toughness and should be durable even at this hardness. Please note these instructions are just guidelines. With practice, you could get decent results with a torch/forge as this is a fairly forgiving steel to heat treat but for best results, a heat treat oven is useful. Please note these instructions are just guidelines. We recommend testing your finished products to ensure the best results are achieved.