Hamon Help

colu41

colu41

Joined
Dec 24, 2014
Messages
1,598
So I'm trying out my first hamon on some 1095. It seemed after the quench that it worked out ok. (How the hell would I know :confused:) Anyways. Heres a few pics, right out of quench, then after a quick 400 grit rub to get the scale and the rest of the clay off. It looks like its pitted on the edges of the where the clay was. Is this normal? From my understanding a hamon is visual effect in the steel, not a physical one. Do I need to sand this thing down smooth, and then go to the etching process?
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Hamon is an actual separation line between hardened and soft steel caused by differential cooling during quench. That I know.

Now, IF your blade is actually etched, there is another issue somewhere as the clay is NOT supposed etch the blade.

I would suggest keep polishing to see IF the blade is etched before making more conclusions.

Larry
Tinkerer
 
Mine look similar to yours after I remove the clay and clean them up a bit. I usually start my sanding with 220,400,600, and then 800 before starting an etch. Under certain light sources and at certain angles you should start seeing some shadowing in the blade at the end of the 220 or 400 grits.

Jay
 
Yours looks just like mine. Right after the quench it does seem that the clay etches the blade to some degree.
I hope you will post a picture when you are finished bringing out the hamon. It looks like you will have a nice one.
 
One thing that I didn't realize until recently is that you have to GRIND!!! Grind all visible 3D type crap off the blade. Not just a few swipes to bright metal, GRIND all of it to smooth metal. You don't want to see anything at all unless it's in the right light. I wasn't grinding enough off and was ending up with hamons that were dirty. I never read about grinding this much and that's why I'm telling you. Get a fresh 120 grit belt and get after it.

This pic shows after a little bit of grinding after quench, there's still a bunch of decarb and also the "3D" effect of where the clay was. Everywhere there is ashi it will look like little horizontal lines in the steel. All of this needs to be ground off.
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In this video it shows after quite a bit of grinding and now it's down to "smooth" metal with relatively no topography. I ground a little more after that before beginning hand sanding. The final hamon is in my other YouTube vids.
[video=youtube_share;JbZ2P0qyX_s]http://youtu.be/JbZ2P0qyX_s[/video]
 
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Yep, you need to do more grinding after heat treat to get rid of all the scale and after effects of the clay, as Kevin said.

The grinding should be a fair amount. Most of the time with most of the equipment that we use for heat treating, you don't want your blade going into heat treating at finished dimensions anyway. The post HT finish grinding for final dimensions and edge geometry most definitely should take care of the rough scale and effects of the clay.

You shouldn't be able to come out of the quench, scrape off the clay and start doing the final polish.
 
J. Doyle said:
Yep, you need to do more grinding after heat treat to get rid of all the scale and after effects of the clay, as Kevin said.

The grinding should be a fair amount. Most of the time with most of the equipment that we use for heat treating, you don't want your blade going into heat treating at finished dimensions anyway. The post HT finish grinding for final dimensions and edge geometry most definitely should take care of the rough scale and effects of the clay.

You shouldn't be able to come out of the quench, scrape off the clay and start doing the final polish.
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It's so much grinding that I've actually scrapped knives after redoing the hamon because I didn't like the size the blade became.
 
The size of the blade shouldn't change at all, you need to leave more meat on there pre-heat treat if there isn't enough left to grind off after heat treating without thinning the edge so much that you need to change the profile to accommodate.
 
MarkJeffrey said:
The size of the blade shouldn't change at all, you need to leave more meat on there pre-heat treat if there isn't enough left to grind off after heat treating without thinning the edge so much that you need to change the profile to accommodate.
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It was after redoing the hamon.
 
Thanks guys. I have since took the blade back to the grinder with 220 grit. I got all the decarb and whatnot off, then started hand sanding again. Before my final grit I did a quick etch to make sure I had a hamon (because at 400 grit I couldn't see even anything faint). But after the etch I could see a decent pattern. I will be taking it up to 600 grit and then doing my final etching and polishing. I will post some pics hopefully tomorrow.
 
colu41 said:
Thanks guys. I have since took the blade back to the grinder with 220 grit. I got all the decarb and whatnot off, then started hand sanding again. Before my final grit I did a quick etch to make sure I had a hamon (because at 400 grit I couldn't see even anything faint). But after the etch I could see a decent pattern. I will be taking it up to 600 grit and then doing my final etching and polishing. I will post some pics hopefully tomorrow.
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Now you can't go doing that to us lol. We've all chased the hamon fairy so when one of us catches her you gotta share what she left you with haha. At 400 grit you should be able to see your hamon in just the right light. What are you etching with, and what are you polishing with? The type of hamon you're going for determines the next steps. The quench only locks it in, it's the polishing that makes the hamon pop. If you're going for a "dirty" hamon where it's flat out 2-tone in any light, then you don't have to do that many etch and polish cycles. If you're going for a "clean" hamon where it only looks 2 tone in dark light, but has a bunch of cloudy whispy stuff, the best course of action is using loose abrasive.

I'm not saying one is better than the other by calling them clean and dirty, just using the terms I've heard knifemakers call their own work. I wouldn't consider this hamon clean in some ways because there's flaws but many knifemakers called it clean when handling it. but there's relatively no oxides left on it. This was done using aggressive pressure with loose silicon carbide powder.
It's the same finish just different lighting.
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MarkJeffrey said:
Very beautiful knife. I'll just be over here with my foot in my mouth.
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Haha it's not even like that. I've been fortunate enough to have some very kind makers help me with this chase. It's very addicting and can be quite heartbreaking. I've wasted so much time trying wrong things. The whole point of my posts in this thread are to give information that I never read while researching hamons. I never read to grind as far as you really have to. I finally feel like I'm at a point where I'm moving in positive directions and once my geometry gets better so will my hamons. If you don't grind as far you'll still have a hamon just not the clarity in the activity that I'm looking for. Everyone's approach to hamon development is different, it's not one of the things that works for everyone straight across the board. It requires expirementation and finding what works for you. The knife I'm currently working on after getting that Bowie done has a failed hamon. It just happens. So it gets a hand rubbed satin instead of hamon development. It's all part of the game. Now if you wanna see real hamons look at work by Avila, Wheeler, Morrison, Hanson, all stunning work, those guys have it down and are an inspiration to me.
 
Beautiful knife Kevin. With my hamons I etch several times for short durations, with diluted ferric chloride, wiping off the oxides in between etches. Then I polish with Mothers mag polish. It definitely leaves a darker hamon line, but it looks good IMO and takes a lot less time to polish.


 
I've since done a few etches, rubbing the oxides off in between. And then, I have yet to purchase some SC powder, so I used some Mothers Metal polish I had. Its not as running as it should be, but it worked out ok. I have a very faint "dirty" hamon line right now. I may do a few heavier etches and just keep going until I'm happy. I also lightly hit it on the buffer with some green compound and that really made the line pop but, its still very faint.
 
colu41 said:
I've since done a few etches, rubbing the oxides off in between. And then, I have yet to purchase some SC powder, so I used some Mothers Metal polish I had. Its not as running as it should be, but it worked out ok. I have a very faint "dirty" hamon line right now. I may do a few heavier etches and just keep going until I'm happy. I also lightly hit it on the buffer with some green compound and that really made the line pop but, its still very faint.
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I don't buff my hamons. Dirty hamons can look great. If the line isn't popping like you want, you have to polish and etch more. If hamons are something you want to do, find silicon carbide or aluminum oxide powder. You can get it on eBay pretty cheap. I have a 1500 grit that I got off eBay, and another grit my tooling guy gave me. I wish I knew what it was because I like it better than the 1500. I hope I haven't posted too much in this thread. I'm just trying to help. Let's see what you got!
 
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