explain this to me.. (hamon question)

Knifemaker87

Knifemaker87

Joined
Jan 2, 2006
Messages
1,073
hey everybody!
i love hamons.. and i love the old blades and the traditional hamons as well as the modern ones.

now.. so far as i under stand it.. we use clay on the blades and pattern the clay down in "fingers" to make the hamon active or what have you... thats what i do anyway. the pattern of the "ashi" is what the hamon roughly follows

now.. look at this:
http://www.ksky.ne.jp./~sumie99/yakiire.html

it shows some before and after pics.. and unless i am mistaken..
THEY USE NO CLAY FOR THIER ASHI!

now.. would that be a "trade secret"? or is it the difference in teh steel? cause i know i have tried it.. and it dunna work for me.. what is up with that?! that radical change cant be just "the difference in the thickness of the blade"

help me out?
thanks
~Chris
 
ashi are to protect the edge, they do not affect the main hamon very much unless you make them very large. This person does not use ashi.

What part of the hamon do you think they are achieving that you would normally with ashi?

Have you ever quenched a blade without ashi?
 
*laughs*
so it is a "hand made steel" thing?

i have tried quenching without ashi.. and get a really boring hamon...
maybe i am doing something wrong..

theirs looks so cool!
thanks
~chris
 
Type of steel, thickness of clay, temp of blade and last but not least, water.

Most of all, years of practice :)
 
Chris, I think the smith just doesn't want to show his personal clay application pattern and omited pictures of those. Use a simple clayed line like that and you get a simple undulating hamon, suguha I believe it's called, but you won't get all that hamon activity on those blades!

Though perhaps I'm wrong. Puzzling if so...

Edited: Came back and looked at the pictures again, the clay pattern shown would have been more of an undulating wave, or notare and not sugaha which would be a straight line.
 
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Yes the interview at the bottom tells it all !! Non-homogenious steel, unknown carbon content, unknown temperatures .Yet with all that they made some nice blades !
 
Guy Thomas said:
Chris, I think the smith just doesn't want to show his personal clay application pattern and omited pictures of those. Use a simple clayed line like that and you get a simple undulating hamon, suguha I believe it's called, but you won't get all that hamon activity on those blades!

Though perhaps I'm wrong. Puzzling if so...
Click to expand...
This could very well be the case.....but maybe not :)
 
I would suspect that the photo of the clayed blade is not the same as the blade with the hamon shown. Or, there may have been additional steps. Perhaps, the technique may have been left out to protect the smiths "secrets".
Stacy
 
If anything tamahagane has a tendency to follow the clay layout very well. The smith is obviously holding back. Nevertheless I like his answer: "Please ask steel."
 
I don't see how he avoids cracks... Did you see the filling gouges in the blade ?? If I did that and quenched in water the blade would be in pieces.... I'd guess that there is very little carbon in that blade... that or all of the talk about "stress risers" is bull !!!
 
rocketmann said:
I don't see how he avoids cracks... Did you see the filling gouges in the blade ?? If I did that and quenched in water the blade would be in pieces.... I'd guess that there is very little carbon in that blade... that or all of the talk about "stress risers" is bull !!!
Click to expand...

I think the key with these types of blades is that they go into the quench with a lot of meat left on them. They are essentially then ground to the final thickness and edge geometry in the intial phases of the stone polish. With modern steels, which are much higher in hardenability anyway, we frequently get them close to the final thickness at the edge before quenching which makes water hardening modern steels dicier. Still, the Japanese smiths do have a high rate of failure even with the traditional steels as most people who water quench do.
 
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