Hamon issues?

S

seanystrangle

Joined
Oct 1, 2009
Messages
374
I have a knife I have been having issues getting to show a hamon. It is 1095 I polished it to a 2000 grit and it it showing nothing I file tested the edge, it was much harder than the spine. I have tried etching with lemon juice and vinagar but I still see nothing. It was an experiment to see if I could polish one I used a brine as a quench the blade took a positive sori but also cracked. Is there anything else I could do or is it just screwed?
Thanks in advance,
Sean Dolan
 
What is your heat treat regime and what is your source for the 1095? Also, how thick are the blades? Post a pic if you can of the blades in question.
 
The blade is 1/8" think about 1/2-3/4 wide about 7" over all in length it was a price of scrap steel from a project about 3 maybe even 4 years ago. I think I got it from admiral steel? I'll try to post a picture tomorrow I left it on my dad's workbench. I normalized it three times, then hearted to just above non magnetic held the temp around 10 minutes (well tried too, I was using an old charcoal forge, I know it's not the best for 1095) then I quenched it in a brine solution
 
That's a strange one. If you got sori and you're observing differential hardening then you should have a hamon.
Without more information it is hard to say, but I can think of a couple things that could be happening. One is that the tempering cycle was to hot, or you over heated the blade grinding and lost the hamon. Another would be a very shallow hamon, and it is there but really close to the edge and hard to see. My last thought would be your sanding, if you accidentally burnished the blade while sanding that could maybe hide it.
One thing I can say is that I can always see a hamon when I first hit the blade with a 50g belt after quenching. If I'm not seeing what I like then I requench. Either way I have a good idea of what to expect, before I start polishing.
I would also recommend not using brine as your quenching medium. You will lose a lot of blades. I use water and lose at least 25% of the blades I quench. Most people seem to like Parks50. It is still fast enough but you won't crack blades.
Lastly, there is a discussion on the ABS forum, in the topic of the month section on hamons. It is an enormous amount of information on quenching and polishing to make hamons, presented by some of the best smiths around. If you are interested in learning how to make hamons I can't think of a better place to start.
 
Iirc the admiral 1095 had higher manganese, so it has less hamon potential. Secondly, if you overshoot temp, you get less hamon potential. For 1095, I keep to below 1475 at the highest. 1450-1465 has been the sweet spot in my shop. With a coal forge, you are taking a shot in the dark. It can be done, but it's much easier with temp control. There are a lot of smiths who know a lot more about this than I do, but these are the starting point parameters that work for me.
 
Did you use clay on the blade? Also, a 1/2 to 3/4" wide blade is pretty narrow to get a hamon.
 
I did you some clay on the spine, it is a very narrow blade I ground it out of just a small piece I think I may restart with some 1080 or something in a better size. I'm hoping to finish building my forge soon and if it works out it will be temperature control I might just wait till then to mess around with hamons any more. Since I hear treated it I have not ground it and I only tempered it to 400 for one hour twice. I guess I could have messed up with the sanding I have never been very good at it honestly. I started reading that thread definitely a ton of information! Thank you everyone so very much!
 
So I re tried with a larger piece of steel this time and I got a positive sori and no crack and I'm using pcb enchant and it's almost like there is a hamon there but it's lighter in color than the body/spine kinda chaotic like it's all over the blade some places it goes up almost to the spine then in the center there is a small dark spot? I normalized 3 times then took it too non magnetic and then a little further and quenched in water I don't have the best most even sanding now there are still some scratches from draw filling could that cause an issue with the etch?
I'm sorry and thank you
 
Sounds like my first attempt at DH, a barely visible hamon and other activity all over the place. Be careful about how long you leave it in the ferric chloride, as it's a rather aggressive etchant (compared to lemon juice and vinegar). As long as the edge hardness is on target, there are no cracks, and those filing marks can be buffed out, then it should be ok to finish. The filing marks shouldn't cause an issue, but depending on how long it was etched, they might take much longer to sand out now. There should be a tutorial (or several) on hand sanding in the video/youtube thread, in case you haven't checked that out for info yet.
 
With your heat treat equipment, getting any type of predictable results will be nearly impossible. To do this well, you need a controlled heat source, even temperature, and practice. I would suggest fast tracking better heat treat equipment, and focusing on getting consistent functional heat treat.
 
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