a crazy thought!!!!!!!!

C

chad2

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Sep 2, 2011
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well this sounds stupid to me to so take it easy on me i know that it is pretty much impossible to quench a hammon into stainless steel for example cpm 154cm but can you temper a hammon into 154cm?

my thought are do the heat treating all the same but when tempering the whole blade temper it at a lower degrees for better edge retention then on the third temper hold the edge in water and draw the spin back further.

my question is can this be done? will you see the hammon and for the big one has anyone tried to do this but try to get the real hammon look if so i think this would be awesome to try?

and again take it easy on me if this is just retarded.
 
Phil was able to differential heat treat A2 and get a Hamon. I have never seen anyone else do it. I wish someone actually did it and spilled the beans :)
 
I believe ferric chloride will etch stainless. You can also use an electrolytic etch.
Or, you could sand/bead blast it on.
 
Would it be possible to clay the edge, and then temper the spine? Probably not temper, but maybe heat it with a blowtorch...? If the clay was very thick...
 
I have never seen anyone else do it.
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I am by no means an expert, but I have been told that stainless knife steel only gets it's stainless properties when hardened.
So when drawing back the spine you'll also lose stainlessnes
 
You might be able to do it by using chunks of steel or something massive on the spine to hold the heat. I messed around with clamping two 3/8 thick bars to the spine of a knife and edge quenching a few years ago. The steel seemed to hold the heat for a lot longer than clay did. Got some interesting looks that way. But that was with carbon steel.
 
While there are people who occasionaly manipulate ( and usually butcher) the HT and temper, there is no GOOD way to get a hamon or temper line on stainless.
Hengelo is correct, unhardened stainless rusts.
Since it air hardens ( and from 1900F) doing any of the normal procedures won't work on stainless, anyway.
If you want an effect for looks, masking off the upper part of the blade and etching in HCl will make a frosty edge. Some call this a Chinese hamon:) , as the procedure is used on many 440C katana from China. You can use the same principal to etch horimono on blades.
Bead blasting does a similar look as etching, but not as frosty.
 
Hengelo_77 said:
I am by no means an expert, but I have been told that stainless knife steel only gets it's stainless properties when hardened.
So when drawing back the spine you'll also lose stainlessnes
Click to expand...

i know that i have heard this before. but how true is it because i have 5160 steel that will rust overnight with a little water on it. right now i am working with some annealed 154cm steel that has been sitting in my garadge for over a month now and it has had water all over it and still no rust i have never cleaned it. so does hardening give it more of a stainless property or is it not stainless at all?
 
IMO, it would be a waste of your time and efforts to try and get a Hamon on a stainless blade.
 
bladsmth said:
While there are people who occasionaly manipulate ( and usually butcher) the HT and temper, there is no GOOD way to get a hamon or temper line on stainless.
Hengelo is correct, unhardened stainless rusts.
Since it air hardens ( and from 1900F) doing any of the normal procedures won't work on stainless, anyway.
If you want an effect for looks, masking off the upper part of the blade and etching in HCl will make a frosty edge. Some call this a Chinese hamon:) , as the procedure is used on many 440C katana from China. You can use the same principal to etch horimono on blades.
Bead blasting does a similar look as etching, but not as frosty.
Click to expand...

That pretty much sums up my feelings on this. I have always been very curious just what Phil Hartsfield was doing/achieving though. :)
 
I saw a while back that Haslinger said he'd done it. Apparently there is something about his process in a back issue of Blade. I wonder if it has anything to do with induction heating?
 
chad2 said:
so does hardening give it more of a stainless property...?
Click to expand...

Yes. Hardening any high-carbon steel brings its corrosion-resistance properties to their fullest potential (which ain't much, in the case case of 5160). Annealed 154CM has enough chromium in it that it will resist rusting to a degree, even before being hardened. I recently tested a piece of annealed ElMax (even more chromium content) and it did not rust one bit after several days half-in/half-out of a glass of very salty water.

Generally, the most corrosion-resistant steels have lots and lots of chromium in them, but barely enough carbon to be really called steel, and cannot be hardened. Think 309SS, which is used in stainless containers for strong acids. Of course there are specialty steels like ElMax and ZDP-189 that have both large amounts of chromium and carbon, and can be made into excellent knives.

Danbo said:
IMO, it would be a waste of your time and efforts to try and get a Hamon on a stainless blade.
Click to expand...

I agree. Etching would get you close to the look, but why? If you actually could do it, again, why? :confused:
 
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OK, basic metallurgy class told us that true SS is reached at about 14% Cr, regardless of C content. So, if the metallurgy states 14% Cr and 1% C and up, it SHOULD harden and be rust resistant (you can rust about any steel with the right solution, eventually)?

Just asking here.

Larry
Tinkerer
 
NickWheeler said:
That pretty much sums up my feelings on this. I have always been very curious just what Phil Hartsfield was doing/achieving though. :)
Click to expand...

I agree.

I have to say, a fake etched or blasted hamon sounds pretty tacky. There is this knife store here on the mall that has swords like that and they always crack me up, Mall Ninja central!
 
ok i never wanted to do a fake one. i wanted to know if it could be done and if it would have the same affect on stainless as it would on carbon steel.
 
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