Hamon help?

Drew Riley

Drew Riley

Joined
Oct 17, 2007
Messages
4,250
Just cut and profiled a few kitchen knives in 26C3 and I’m thinking of trying a hamon on some or all of them. My first question: I like to quench in a vertical tank at full thickness and do all my grinding post heat treat. (Knives are all .100 thick FYI). Will this drastically affect my hamon line or the ability to get one? Should I take my coating closer to the edge, or will it matter much?

I appreciate any insight from those of you getting hamons on your 26c3.

Thanks!
 
Vertical quenching is fine if the tank has sufficient oil.

The hamon may be slightly lessened in a fill thickness quench, it should still show in kitchen knife stock of .060-.070". I would suggest a basic suguha or notare clay pattern.
 
I’ve only tried one hamon so far and it was 26C3. I did full thickness at 0.08” and there wasn’t much activity on the transition it was somewhat boring but my clay pattern didn’t have much detail either to be fair. I was counting on some interesting transition details which didn’t happen.
 
Drew, I haven’t tried it on full thickness yet. You’re probably going to lose a lot of activity, but yes I’d take it very close to the edge if I were you. Around 1/4” or even closer. The last one I did, I took the fingers to the actual edge and got good results.
 
@Robert Erickson is getting some nice hamons in 26C3. He did the heat treat on two tantos for me in that material.
My stock was 0.150" thick and based on his suggestions I took the edge to about 0.045" before HT. This worked very well.
In our correspondence I recall him thinking that trying it at full thickness wouldn't work as well. Perhaps he will weigh in.
 
I used a vertical quench, no problem. Stock was 0.120" thick 26C3.

I ground the bevel before heat treat, maybe reducing thickness to 0.08".

The line is exactly where the clay was applied (rutland's black furnace cement).
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While I do normally prefer full thickness quenching, you guys have me giving this some more thought. I think I will try some preliminary grinding, maybe down to .050 or .060 before quench. Need to pick up some furnace cement on the way home from work, as well as finish putting a new quench tank together tonight, but hopefully I test a couple this weekend.
 
In my experience, geometry and temp are more important than clay in getting a great hamon. Grind partway there rather than quench at full thickness. Hamons love wedge shapes.
 
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