Hamon Polishing... How do you know you don't have anymore activity or whispy stuff

Brian Avila

Brian Avila

Joined
Jan 2, 2011
Messages
1,286
So I have been in the never ending chase for hamons. I did two blades finished one, and thought through my process and messed with some stuff and then finalized a polish tonight on a different knife taking in account my changes. Clay quenched 1095.

I was curious on how do you know there isn't anything else to bring out? I have polished and etched and polished and etched like 20 times, so I am pretty sure there is nothing else that I can bring out. What should I be looking for when doing the polish?

I pretty much followed Nick Wheeler's polishing techniques. However, I just let the blade sit in a 1:3, water to vinegar solution. Flitz polish, clean off, etch, and then switched over to 1500 loose abrasives.

one side had a little more activity than the other, but that is life.

thoughts?

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-Brian-
 
That is really nice!! I wonder the same thing, and I think it comes down to experience.
 
That looks great Brian :cool:

I don't like submerging the blade because it etches the whole thing at the same rate.

I rarely (almost never) use Flitz anymore... just loose abrasives.

You'll find certain spots in your shop where the lighting is just right, and you can wave the blade around and see the activity. Usually it's an area with an incandescent bulb and some shadows. Or just go in a dark room and shine a flashlight on the blade.

I usually know most of what's there to bring out at a 60X grind. By the time I'm done hand sanding I can see whatever is there to bring out. I don't know if it's experience, lighting, black magic...? :)
 
Thanks Nick.

Could you explain a little more about your thoughts on the rate of etching. I don't know why that would matter....
 
If you're trying to bring out ashi/white-whispy stuff... Why would you etch into the pearlite above the hamon???

It adds extra work that isn't required.

And etching the way I do, helps to remove oxides as you are doing it, which is a more effective process.

But ya' gotta do what works for you.
 
Strigamort said:
Nick, so you're saying that you use the fc just on the edge (below the hamon)? How do you insure you don't go above it?
Click to expand...

I have tried both FC and vinegar. I like vinegar way more than the FC for hamons now. I don't think it is about not going over the transition zone line, but being able to direct the etch to below it, instead of the same etching below and above that you would get from just submerging the blade.

Here is the video that Nick put together for you to check out.
 
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Awesome video, very helpful!

Sorry to jump in your thread Weatherman. If you don't mind, can you tell me how you remove your oxides after the step Nick showed in the video?

Edit- nevermind, it's right there in your first post.

Thanks again. :)
 
I don't mind if you jump in at all. I am hear to learn and to help out as much as I can. I wouldn't be able to make knives without all the help the guys and gals on the bladeforums helping me out.

Ok, so in the video Nick only shows you how he uses the vinegar to etch. Nick stated above that he doesn't use Flitz anymore and I came to the same consensus when I was polishing this blade, I did two blades recently and started to notice if I only used the powder I started to get what I wanted. It made it look better in my opinion.

So you would etch it and it looks all dirty and what not. I took 1500 silicon carbide powder, I found it off of eBay that was originally intended for polishing rocks. I take a makeup pad, kind of like a cotton ball, and WD-40, spray WD-40 on blade, add the loose powder and start polishing length wise. Once you have removed all the oxides, I use soap and warm water, clean it up and then etch again. I seriously did that 15 - 20 times on this blade just to get it to where it was right now. It was probably good after 7 but I wanted to see if I could etch any more white whispy stuff out, reason I started the thread.

Does that help?

-Brian-
 
No advice to give you, but just wanted to say that is a nice looking blade Brian. Well done. Hamon looks terrific and well placed. Please post the finished product when done!
 
Absolutely that helps. I played around with 2500 grit paper because I don't have the loose SiC, but it only polished the bevel and it took the ability to see activity with it. I don't think there's any way around buying some sort of loose abrasive or some sort of polish.

I'll look into the rock polishing abrasive.

Thanks. :)
 
Oh man... that video... :o :foot:

LOL

I meant to take it off youtube. I've gotten death threats that started over that video. :confused: Seriously. :rolleyes:




Okay, back to the topic at hand-----



Many guys are resistant to getting loose abrasives... I think because it sounds weird and different and they THINK it's going to be expensive. It USED to be... When I first started buying them, you had to order them from places that do things like polish magnifying lenses, and they usually cost about $40-60 for a few ounces.

Now you can get a pound of whatever flavor you like, delivered to your door from ebay, for about $10-15!!! The sellers I have purchased from are selling the stuff either as rock tumbling media, or as firework supplies.

I have 220X, 400X, 600X, 1000X, 1200X, 1500X, and 3micron loose, powder abrasives in my shop.

I use the 400X and 1500X BY FAR the most.




I still do my polishing much like that thread I did back in 2010. However, I have found that hand sanding to 2500X is not an absolute must. It does give the best platform to bring out all the ashi and white, whispy stuff... But it's very time consuming, and is a very delicate finish.

I have done several blades in the last couple years that were hand sanded to 1000X before starting the etch/polish cycles.

I've even done some at 500X that came out quite nice (at the risk of saying so myself :o :foot:).



Here's my $5 tip (please mail your checks to Castle Rock, WA ;) :D)


For a more aggressive initial etch--- here's something to try: Hand sand to 500-1000X. NICE AND CLEAN. Etch the hardened area with a 3:1 (water to Ferric Chloride mix) on a cotton ball. Neutralize with ammonia. Hand sand CAREFULLY with 2000X.

YES, this is the proverbial 2 steps forward, 1 back, but in the long run it saves time.

Then move to the vinegar etch.

Heating the blade with a heat gun or even a propane torch (be careful, you can certainly F up your HT with a propane torch... I use a heat gun) prior to etching makes the etch more effective.

Keeping the acid warm will also help.

Since there's an oven/range in my new shop, I put a ss bowl on a burner with the vinegar and dish soap, and heat it that way. You don't want/need it boiling, but warm/hot definitely, IME, helps.

I used to do between 5 and 20+ etch & polish cycles.

With this ^^^ process, I typically do 3 or 4, max 6.

Part of the proficiency improvement is due to ditching the Flitz. The powder abrasives do what you need, without being TOO aggressive.

The shitty part of all this, is that there is NO SET FORMULA to follow.

Don Fogg told me that over 10 years ago, and as much as I already admired and respected him (only more so nowadays :)) I was really hoping he was wrong... But he wasn't.

Every blade is different. Every blade will require something different to bring the most out of it.

One super important element to keep in mind, is that you can't flex fat.

Oh wait, that's bodybuilding... not knife making. ;) :D

Kind of the same train of thought though... if the activity is NOT in the steel from the hardening process, it doesn't matter what you do with polishing... you won't have anything to bring out.

That's why getting to where you can see what's going on (activity wise) in the blade at a rough grind is SO HELPFUL. If it's not what you want, at that point it's not too late to re-harden it.
 
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Nick, how long do you etch with the Ferric Chloride, before you hand sand with 2000X. Also, thanks for sharing the information.
 
Well to make me feel better and since you said you forgot to remove the video, the video has been removed from my post.

Hopefully that will help with the threats.... Sorry ,that sounds crazy and hope nothing happens.

-Brian-
 
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