Hamon Etching Issues

F

F Niz

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Jun 12, 2018
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Whats up everyone. I’m on my fifth knife at this point. I decided to try a hamon with 1095. I’m aware of the heat treating properties of this steel, yet I decided to take a chance and use heated canola oil rather than an interrupted water and oil quench (I made two tantos, because I knew the water would likely break at best one, so I’m going to try that next).

So I cleaned the blade up by hand today, not to a true mirror finish but a pretty good hand finish (mirrored enough to see specific details of your facial hair, etc). Then I used vinegar to etch. I noticed that most of the oxides and whatever they are, namely the black that gives you the color, comes off substantially when you wipe it off and buff it with polish. Do I need to simply continuing doing these 10 minute cycles? The differential heat treat worked (at least to a satisfactory level for me, the edge is hard but nothing else), and the hamon is there, but it’s just not very noticeable.

Could it just be my batch of 1095, or maybe ferric chrloide would be better? Any little tips would be great, thanks.

Edit: By the way, that picture is the perfect angle and lighting, it normally doesn’t look that obvious. In most settings you can barely see the hamon if at all.
 
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Lots of possibilities.
The biggest one is probably that 10 minutes is too short with vinegar, try a hour.
I use FC diluted 10:1 or thinner.
 
Ok wow I didn’t think of etching it for an hour but that’s makes sense because most people leave blades in Ferric Chloride for example for long durations, so why not some weak vinegar? That makes sense, thanks. I’ll give that a shot tomorrow.

I do want to get ferric chloride, for sure. It’s on my list (unfortunately my list is gigantic).
 
Ok guys, thanks for the info. Unfortunately I didn’t gets fc yet, but I did further etch with vinegar as suggested. I think I was also confused about how important it is to polish the blade afterwards, because after more etching and then using some green chrome rouge on a cloth, I got it looking ok. I’m done with this one, hopefully next time I’ll have some FC and 50 oil or do it interrupted. I also don’t think I cleaned it enough beforehand, because there are some lines and they picked up a lot of the oxides. Thanks again.

Here’s a picture. It actually looks better in person this time as opposed to the last picture. I had tape on it and it’s a little dirty with some tape lines, but that’s it.
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Because I know everyone is interested here is the final knife before putting an edge on it. I think it’s alright, for my fifth knife I’m happy with it. It’s better looking than my fourth at least, but obviously the hamon process was off a little. Next one will be water and oil. Thanks for the help.
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F Niz said:
Because I know everyone is interested here is the final knife before putting an edge on it. I think it’s alright, for my fifth knife I’m happy with it. It’s better looking than my fourth at least, but obviously the hamon process was off a little. Next one will be water and oil. Thanks for the help.
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Great job!
 
Personally I don’t have a PVC set up yet, but maybe the others can help. I honestly would probably just use plumbing tape or some kind of silicon tape, and really torque the bottom one.

Thanks for the support guys. I actually just did the water and oil interrupted quench and didn’t break the blade lol. I was shocked, but it is my best grind yet so I am pretty happy. Will post about it if I learn anything new here. Not sure how different the hamon will be. I let it soak as long as I could in my small forge. I used dish soap as per Green Beetle, and heated it to 130ish F. I also left the edge thick (probably close to 1/10”, pretty big).
 
Thanks for the link. I’ve looked through and pretty much everything I’ve learned coincides with what everyone wrote.

I did a water quench and honestly the hamon is the same. This time however I used lemon juice after vinegar and it gave it a darker color (I know usually they say it gives it the white areas but not for me, the vinegar made the hamon line white). Basically it seems everything comes down to the hand finishing process before etching, the etching, and the polishing, and the steel I assume has a large effect. I’ll be trying another steel type soon. When I have some more experience I’ll post it in that thread. This is the water one, finished to an ugly dirty looking degree... I can’t seem to get it to look nice but keep the color. Maybe that’s the whole issue after all.

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F Niz said:
Thanks for the link. I’ve looked through and pretty much everything I’ve learned coincides with what everyone wrote.

I did a water quench and honestly the hamon is the same. This time however I used lemon juice after vinegar and it gave it a darker color (I know usually they say it gives it the white areas but not for me, the vinegar made the hamon line white). Basically it seems everything comes down to the hand finishing process before etching, the etching, and the polishing, and the steel I assume has a large effect. I’ll be trying another steel type soon. When I have some more experience I’ll post it in that thread. This is the water one, finished to an ugly dirty looking degree... I can’t seem to get it to look nice but keep the color. Maybe that’s the whole issue after all.

ujQ9Q1h.jpg
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My steel preferences for a hamon are in this order: Hitachi white, W2, Aldo’s 1075, then 1095. They all respond just a little bit differently.
 
Willie71 said:
My steel preferences for a hamon are in this order: Hitachi white, W2, Aldo’s 1075, then 1095. They all respond just a little bit differently.
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Thanks for the advice, because I don’t know much about it tbh. I know W2 is considered s good one(at least the right W2, with the right %s), but further than that I didn’t really have any idea. This is his 1095 (NJSB, I actually work like fifteen minutes from them, I’ve tried emailing him to see if you can actually pick up steel and never got a response).

What sucks is that I’m not yet forging (I have a small forge though so I may try soon), so I basically have to get stock removal sized steel.
 
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