Explain this weird hamon

Chiro75

Chiro75

Joined
Feb 4, 1999
Messages
5,786
My latest Tactical Orange Peeler, and I have some really weird hamon activity in it. Hoping someone may have an explanation... Here's what I did:
1) "Normalized" 7 times.
2) Coated with Satanite, but was a little heavy handed on the ashi lines, so after quenching and tempering and starting to clean it up I realized the valleys in the hamon were dipping into the edge.
3) Normalized 3 more times, coated again, heated, quenched, tempered at 400°.

So, the original hamon is gone. The one I wanted to be there with the clay, is there. But where did that completely perfectly straight line come from? And actually, if you look, there is another straight line between the lowest temper line and the actual hamon. I don't dislike this, but I'm curious what you think happened with this? At first I thought maybe I was seeing some sort of weird banding effect, but clearly that straight line curves up around the point and is not some irregularity in the steel that I created through the multiple heating cycles.

Any ideas, good, bad indifferent?

hamon4.jpg


hamon5.jpg
 
damn.. I gotta say I love those peelers of yours. Personally I think that hamon looks nice :)
 
I like it, too, but where did that STRAIGHT line come from? I couldn't make that happen if I wanted to! :confused: I really like the little "hook" up on the spine. The thing that I love about clay coating blades and doing differential HT is the wabi sabi aspect of it.
 
I am still learning about steel (tons to learn) but could that straight line be grains in the steel ?
 
Headline-----Temper line matches maker----weird at 7---
Did you scrape the edge to get satanite off??????? :eek:
Is this a stock removal blade out of O1????
 
Not really an edge quench. Lately I've been dunking the blades, edge first (not point down) into warm Automatic Transmission Fluid to cover about half the clay, agitating a bit, then fully dunking a couple seconds later. Yes, all of the old clay was removed. This is 1095, not O1. Mysterious.
 
I've had this happen a few times...(I happen to like it when it happens too)



The edge is quenching faster than the rest of the blade. Couple of possibilities:

1 - you are slightly hesitating (even just a fraction of a second) as you quench edge-down.

2 - your edge could be quite a bit hotter than the rest of the knife (aggressive grind? - goes from thick to thin quickly).

3 - fast-quenching oil, and not agitating enough.


It's almost like having a double quench, or interrupted quench.
 
Hmm. A lot to think about. This one has three temper lines altogether. The two straight ones aren't that easy to see, but you can see them sort of wrap up around the tip, too. We'll see what happens next time. My heat seemed pretty even, but I can't rmember if it was this knife or the other one I did at the same time, but one flamed up a few times, so maybe I was worrying more about catching on fire than what I was doing in the quench! Thanks for the ideas...
 
Steve,This comes from the blade entering the quenchant at an uneven rate (by milli-seconds perhaps).With 1095 the curve is so steep that the retained heat under the clay reheats the metal a bit after it starts to harden,and the blade moving downward rehardens a slight bit higher than the first time -thus two temper lines.The main hamon is from the pearlite under the clay.The best way to prevent this is to have a blade tray in the oil to stop the blade at a preset depth.That way the edge is plunged in quickly to the depth of the tray,and about 3 to 5 seconds later you plunge it all the way down next to the tray.
Stacy
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top