An SPG STRIX Owner Finds the Cladding Scratches First
The most useful knife reviews on Reddit are the ones written by someone who bought a knife they did not expect to keep. A new post in r/knifeclub on the SPG STRIX is exactly that: the buyer calls it a catch and release, then admits they kept it, used it for a couple of weeks, and discovered something about the finish that no spec sheet mentions.
The finding is that the outer layer of the blade scratches almost immediately. Cutting a cardboard box left visible marks, and a soda can tab was enough to put a scratch in the surface without much effort. The core steel, by contrast, held up exactly as it should.
That is not a defect. It is how san mai construction works. San mai is a three-layer laminate: a hard, wear-resistant core steel is sandwiched between two softer cladding layers. The soft cladding is what gives the blade its toughness and its visual pattern, and by definition it is softer than the core, so it takes scratches that the edge never will. A reply in the thread made the point plainly: the cladding is supposed to be softer, and marking it is the expected behaviour, not a manufacturing problem.
The practical consequence is that a san mai blade is a poor choice for anyone who needs a knife to keep looking new. A mono-steel blade like MagnaCut or S35VN will scuff too, but it scuffs at the same hardness as the edge, so the wear is uniform. On a laminated blade the contrast between a scratched cladding and a pristine core becomes the dominant visual feature after a few weeks of use.
The thread wandered, as these threads do. One reply noted that the S35VN version of the same knife was discounted, and someone else was surprised to learn that Demko makes san mai blades at all. That drift is worth following: if you want the look, the laminate is the point; if you want a user, the mono-steel version is the cheaper and more durable answer.
Verdict: san mai is a finish decision as much as a steel decision. Buy it because you like the pattern and accept that it will mark, or buy the S35VN version and stop worrying about the surface.