The four Digits number used to reference this particular Spring Steel refer to the major elements used to produce this alloy. It contains 2% of Silicon and about 0.9% of Manganese. The material that results from this combination is very resistant to corrosion and abrasion. Silicon element give the material the highest metal fatigue resistance with a high tensile strength: objects made of 9260 Spring Steel, especially 9260 Spring steel Katanas, are characterized by a high resilience to lateral bending and they are able to get their original shape back even after being exposed to an extreme bending effort (bending to 90). The material is hard and is expected to be hardly forged by hands to make swords.
Compared to its nearest similar Carbon Steel type, the 1060 Carbon Steel, 9260 Spring steel is resistant to heat treatment and it is able to preserve its attributes under extreme heat-treatment conditions. It is important to signal that for Carbon Steel, the heat treatment is the stress phase that would result or not in good and usable material.
Besides bending resilience, Silicon gives the Spring Steel material the characteristics of being hard and tough. Here again, compared to the Carbon Steel with same Carbon concentration, 9260 Spring Steel has a very high shock absorption capacity; this property is appreciated in the 9260 Spring Steel Katanas. Due to this characteristic, it is obvious that 9260 is very hard to forge by hand. Processing the material at high temperature is the only way to make it responsive to forging operation, the material being already resistant to heat treatment and there is no major fear that it loses the carbon fraction.
The excellent durability, the high resilience to bending efforts and the hardness of hand forging of the 9260 Spring Steel make it a very expensive material. With several sub types, this material is a god choice to pick when it is about making katanas for sale. Actually, sword smiths use 9260 TH, 9260 Hybrid, 9260 Lam and 9260 DH. These sub types share the high resilience and the excellent heat treatment ability. The hardness of the Steel is one factor that encourages swords man to opt for it because it ensures the durability of the sharp edge and the low need for extensive care. Therefore, 9260 spring steel katana is expected to be hard to forge sword that lasts for long.
9260 Spring katana inherits lots of the material properties. The samurai sword made of this type of steel is very resistant to abrasion and highly resistant to corrosion. It is hard to obtain by hand forging and therefore very expensive. The use of this particular type of material implicates additional information especially about the way it is intended to be used: if the user plans to use the Sword for cutting, it is better to make the sword relatively longer than normal, if the user intends to use the sword and to strike it on the blade sides, then it is better to make a thicker sword.