First Hamon...Finishing?

silver_pilate

silver_pilate

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Oct 30, 2002
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I ground out and heat treated a blade of 1095 today and decided to try for a hamon. The blade is one that Paul Smith (Big Smitty) sent me that he had cut by David at Great Lakes Water Jet.

After grinding, I thermal cycled the blade 3 times, decreasing the heat each time, and finally let it cool to room temperature. After it was cool, I cleaned up the blade lightly and applied about 1/16" to 3/32" of furance cement on the spine of the knife. Nothing perfect, I was just seeing what I could come up with. After drying for 45 minutes, coupled with 10 minutes with a heat gun at around 250, it looked something like this:

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During this time, I had the oven equalizing, and I popped the blade in at 1460F for 10 minutes. After the soak, it went edge/tip (at an angle because of my tank setup) smoothly into 100F Park's #50. In the oil for a count of 3, out of the oil for a count of 3 to autotemper, and back into the oil with agitation tip to butt until cool to oil temp. Then it went in the oven at 415 for two 1.25-hour tempers.

After tempering, I took it to the grinder and cleaned it up and started hand sanding, hoping to find something hiding in there. This is what it looks like right now sanded up to 400 grit:

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There's a little bit more action in the right light, and I haven't etched it yet. Both sides are fairly symetrical with that little finger coming in from the plunge on both sides. Nothing fancy, but it looks like a hamon!

My question now is, how do I finish this blade out to get the most out of this hamon? How high grit by hand? When to etch? What to finish with after etc? Also, what tips for the future to get more activity with hamons?

For a while there I wasn't sure if I would have anything, or if the hamon would extend too close to the edge, but so far so good. Nothing too earthshattering, but the blade didn't break :).

Thanks!

--nathan
 
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There are two things that will make the line stand out, higher polish and/or etch. What I do now (after the thread Matt Lamey started on the topic) is: hand sand to 400 grit clean blade and then with rubber gloves on I rub it down with a old but clean sock soaked in a 50/50 water and Feric chloride mix. Rub and scrub a bit wash rinse dry and then hand buff with windex and a semi coarse buffing compound.

If you have the fc give it a try. It is really quite easy and makes the line pop. Also any lines at 400 grit hand sanded or higher will disapear with this strong of an etch.
 
Nice job on the knife Nathan :thumbup::thumbup:

It sure is fun to see what you're going to get when doing Hamon !!
Almost better than opening a present :D

steelshaper said:
There are two things that will make the line stand out, higher polish and/or etch. What I do now (after the thread Matt Lamey started on the topic) is: hand sand to 400 grit clean blade and then with rubber gloves on I rub it down with a old but clean sock soaked in a 50/50 water and Feric chloride mix. Rub and scrub a bit wash rinse dry and then hand buff with windex and a semi coarse buffing compound.

If you have the fc give it a try. It is really quite easy and makes the line pop. Also any lines at 400 grit hand sanded or higher will disapear with this strong of an etch.
Click to expand...

Is this technique used rather than a "dip" into the FeCl3 Will ?

And Holy Smokes, you certainly can't refute the results Matt is getting but only 400 grit :confused:

I might have to give this method a shot :thumbup: Sounds like a real time saver !




:cool:
 
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I take it to 400 by hand and then give it a light etch in a very dilute 10:1 FC solution.The time in the etch varies from a minute to ten minutes. Occasional rubbing will help ( I like the gloved hand/sock trick)
If the activity shows a good pattern, I hand sand to 1000, and etch again. Wet sand, etch, wet sand etch, as you go up to 2000 grit. Stop there, and give it a polish ,by hand, with Flitz or Simichrome. Never power buff a blade on which you are trying to show the hamon. It may smear it, or make it very hard to see.
This process will vary from blade to blade, and you have to decide how to proceed as the hamon develops.
Do a search on hybrid polishing, and you will get a lot more info.
Stacy
 
You need to stop the action of the acid, once you reach a point where the amount of etch is satisfactory to you.
Other wise the acid will continue to etch the steel, leaving you with a muddied homon with splotches in it.

I use baking soda myself. There are other things that can be used. Baking soda is cheap and quite effective.
Move the blade out of the acid to a water rinse and then apply the baking soda. I do it twice; once while the blade is wet then again when the blade is dry.

Fred
 
Heres something that might help, I tried everything under the sun and everyones results are always alittle different but I etch at 220 grit then hand sand up to 400, now when I get to 400 I use paper towels, rouge red, and wd40. After I polish to 400, I then get a paper towel and sprinkle rouge red bar onto the metal and put a little wd 40 on the towel and start rubbing, It has worked great for me. It usually takes couple minutes for it to start jumping out, Hope this helps,Good luck,Charlie
 
Thanks for the tips everyone. Tonight I went back out to the shop and cleaned up a few scratches I missed at 400 grit. Then I cleaned the blade well with alcohol (not well enough, apparently...got a few little marks in the etch, but that may have been from particulate settled on the bottom of my ferric choloride tank).

After it was clean, I did a quick 10-12 second etch (in a 4:1 solution) followed by a quick polish using the red rouge, paper towel, and WD40 trick to see what happened. Here's where it's at right now:

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Didn't have my wife's nice Canon Rebel, so no controlled focus here. But you can definitely see more action.

I think I'm going to go ahead and sand to 1000 to remove those little unwanted marks (a few pin pricks in the hamon and a mark on the ricasso) and then etch again followed by another polish. Then we'll see where we're at again.

Thanks again for all your help, everyone!

--nathan
 
Nathan that looks GREAT!!!! I usually leave mine at that point but polish away, it really looks wonderful!!!
 
Thanks, Charlie. It's not too bad for a first go around. Next one I'd like to get a bit more action, but I am happy with this one so far. :) I think I'll switch to satanite for clay as the furnace cement doesn't go on that great, and I had some pitting under the clay once I removed it. It also swells up pretty big in the oven. The pitting is nothing a few passes at 60 grit on the grinder doesn't take care of, but I'd like to avoid it nonetheless.

--nathan
 
if you have some veryvery fine pumice powder...that'll bring up more... rubbed on with a soft backing....just to remove the oxide from the etch.. seems with the pumice that it needs alot of working and pattern gets better...anything much more than that and your starting over ...as your eating into the metal..
-sometimes you can get some shadowy stuff above the quench line to show..

i'd take it up to a 1000... anything over 400, i'd wet sand with min oil..

make sure to degrease thoroughly before etch.... and then build up a nice even oxide layer

G;)
 
Nathan, that's fantastic! This makes me want to get some W2 or 1095 and take a shot at making a hamon myself. Anyone know where to get flat W2? I suppose Admiral has 1095 but is there someplace else that's price competitive?

Thanks for any info, and thanks for the great inspiration Nathan. :thumbup:
 
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