Bura's steady hand with the tea kettle

[mrostov]

Soaked the blade on my PK in distilled vinegar for 3 hours. As you can see, the temperline showed up. Bura tempered this blade almost perfectly. The hard temper goes all the way to the tip. Bura is good at what he does, no doubt.

 

[Nasty]

Yup...typical of the hamons I've seen from Bura. How do you like the vinegar soak finish?

 

[Bill Martino]

He's the best but even he can stutter every now and then. Maybe his hand shakes a little.

 

[firkin]

three hours!?

No wonder I haven't had much luck in seeing a hamon.

 

[mrostov]

I like the vinegar soaks because it helps head off rust and initiates a controlled oxidation, much like gunblue does. I don't like putting gunblue on blades that might cut game meat and other food. On the PK Tracker I used cold-blue only on the buttcap and then on the handguard.

The time you leave it in the vinegar depends upon the steel and the temper. Pretty much best to just keep an eye on it while it's in there.

I left a skinning knife that I had made out of a file in vinegar and it immediately started turning black. I almost left it in too long as it started to pit one side.

A Cold Steel SRK I left in the vinegar took a couple hours to get a uniform dark coating all over the whole blde.