Hamon Recommendations?

D

dwaterfield

Joined
Feb 24, 2022
Messages
115
Hello all, and happy new year!

My "Twixmas" project was to work on a hamon for a chef knife. The knife was originally shaped at a class I took last year from scrap steel that the instructor believed was 1080.

I finally got around to working on finishing it. I used Rutland refractory cement to coat the blade and then scraped areas clean to make a pattern. I then used the forge and warmed vegetable oil to heat treat, followed by tempering in the kitchen oven.

https://flic.kr/p/2o9AsjR
https://flic.kr/p/2o9A3ws
https://flic.kr/p/2o9zaWo

So far so good. The blade is hard, and the pattern shows after heat treat and tempering.

I was less enthused with the final result. I tried a few different approaches to drawing out the hamon. What worked best was:

1. Hand sanded to 1000 grit.
2. Used a foam brush to apply heated (not boiling) apple cider vinegar to the blade, which made the pattern visible.
3. Repeated treatments with apple cider vinegar until the entire blade area darkened to gray.
4. Polished the blade. The first time I tried 2000 grit paper but that seemed to remove more than enhance the hamon. Went back through the etching with apple cider vinegar and tried again with a buffer, which gave the results below.

This is not the final finish but very close. You can see some scratches that have been buffed out now.

https://flic.kr/p/2o9vg1h

So overall I'm not completely unhappy since this was a first attempt. There are several things wrong (at least) and I'm hoping y'all might have some thoughts on how to improve.

A few things I know are wrong:

First, the hamon is "dirty". I need to do a better job at having clean steel where the cement isn't covering it. You can see some ghostly lines that I could attempt to claim are "art" but really are just me not realizing that even a little cement will leave a mark.

Second, I think I need to be more even in the coating. The pattern's shade was not consistent and I think it's because of uneven thickness of cement. Does that seem correct? Is there a recommended thickness of cement? Does it need to be mixed more smoothly?

Third, I'm not happy with the contrast of the pattern. I've seen very dramatic results from other smiths. There are a lot of factors here - steel, cement, acid, etching process - so I'm not sure where to start in adjusting my approach to this. I'd appreciate any thoughts on how to get a more visible hamon....without spending 10 years to learn how to use Japanese polishing stones. :)

Thanks in advance, everyone.
 
First thing I’d do is start with known & appropriate steel for your next one. After that I think you are tracking okay. You’ll get many opinions on what and what not to do, but you seem to have the concept. Get some quality low manganese steel that is known for hamon development & practice.
 
Tom Lewis said:
Try polishing with 1500 grit silicon carbide. You can get it off e-bay.
Click to expand...
Thanks, Tom, I'll take a look.

Bühlmann said:
First thing I’d do is start with known & appropriate steel for your next one. After that I think you are tracking okay. You’ll get many opinions on what and what not to do, but you seem to have the concept. Get some quality low manganese steel that is known for hamon development & practice.
Click to expand...
I definitely will. I work with 1095 a lot so that will probably be my next attempt. I've read good things about 1084 as well.
 
I believe those dark areas are decarb, not the hamon.
It looks like you didn't sand the blade down enough after HT. Start with 120 or 220 grit and take it all the way down to shiny metal. Then work up the grits.
While apple cider vinegar will make a hamon show, a better etchant would be FC or dilute (100:1) muriatic acid.
 
Thanks for the response Stacy. I'll definitely look at using FC. I heated the apple cider using a repurposed coffee maker....should FC be heated or is room temperature ok?

After heat treat, I started sanding with 80 grit and worked up to 600 before etching. I recall being concerned because at 220 I wasn't seeing any hamon, just metal. I thought I might have sanded through it!
If you're talking about the last picture above, I think the color may be off because I was playing with the camera settings to show the hamon. The white balance is shifted towards blue there. The picture on the anvil is immediately after quenching.
 
If you took it to bare shiny metal, then that sounds OK.

I will tell you that chasing the illusive hamon is a long rabbit hole. Tere are many claying methods and polishing techniques. All of them take time to learn.

Rutland's has never worked well for me. It gives only a minimal hamon ... at best.
I bought the two-jar claying method from Nu-Clayer, but haven't tried it yet. It seems to be a very good system, but a tad pricey. Up to now I use satanite mixture to clay the blades.

Start with a wash coat of satanite and water about as thick as cream. Coat the entire blade and let the excess run off the edge. Let dry overnight. Mix more satanite into the wash coat jar until it is about as thick as sour cream. Use this to form your pattern. Remember that the actual hamon (yakiba) will usually form slightly above or below the clay line. It takes some practice to learn where it will fall.

When doing yaki-ire the temperature is very important. Keep it at the lower end of the range for the steel. Also, low manganese is critical. Two different batches or 1095 may have very different hamon results depending on the Mn content.
The quench is when and how it forms. While a water quench will form the most active hamon, fatal blade failure is a real possibility. Parks #50 is fast enough and works quite well. If you have a very low manganese steel, you can try water, on most standard blade steels use oil only.

Start with a suguha hamon. It is a simple straight line. Then try a notare hamon, which is wavy line. Then try a gunome, which is make by pushing a fingertip up against a line of clay to make multiple semi-circles with points at the junction. Once you can get those repeatedly, you can get creative and go for choji, and all sorts of fancy lines.
I will tell you that a gunome with ashi lines is a very doable and stunning hamon.

Ashi lines are formed by taking a popsicle stick and dipping the side in a thin layer of clay, then placing it on the blade leaving a thin line of clay going down from the main clay line. Usually, these are places in three lines that fan out from the clay line, but also can be an X.
 
I’ll share this. I just tried my first hamon the day before you posted this thread. I am making a blade out of 26C3 and thought “why not?”. I have a jar of Nuclayer 2000 anti-scale, and some leftover Plistex 900F from coating my forge. I wanted to use the 900F & searched all over the interwebs for someone else using it for hamon, but couldn’t find anything, so I chickened out and used the Nuclayer 2000 anti-scale, figuring it was a safer bet to not ruin my blade if it didn’t work. IDK what the 900F would do, but I figured anti-scale won’t do any harm.

The Nuclayer separates in the jar if left to set awhile, and the clay precipitates out into a sticky, thick clay. That’s what I used, was the “unmixed” part of the 2000 solution, thinking it would serve best for the application. It applied well, and I put two coats on and did my HT. Long story longer is that I got no hamon. Most of the 2000 came off on the Parks 50, just as Nuclayer 2000 anti-scale is advertised to do, and I suppose in doing so the purpose of the clay is negated in the oil. The blade hardened HARD, as 26C3 is supposed to, and no ill effects noted, but no hamon. Oh well, worth a try and now I can share my experience with you. Next time maybe I’ll try the Plistex 900F, or just buy the Nuclayer 1800 hamon clay and know for sure. I don’t think there are many guarantees in creating a hamon!
 
The Hamon 1800 is different from the no-scale 2000.
The separated part is probably a binder that helps it stay together. I would suggest mixing it back up properly next time.
Reconstitute with bottled (not tap with chlorine) water to the desired consistency. Let sit a day and mix up again to see if it needs more water.


You don't want the clay layer very thick. 1/16" is more than enough.
A good way to get the blade clean so the cay sticks is to scrub it hard with the diluted slurry, wipe it clean, then give it the wash coat and let the excess drain off. The wash coat isn't much of a layer, more like a thin whitewash (graywash?). Letting each layer dry fully is also key to good success.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
The Hamon 1800 is different from the no-scale 2000.
The separated part is probably a binder that helps it stay together. I would suggest mixing it back up properly next time.
Reconstitute with bottled (not tap with chlorine) water to the desired consistency. Let sit a day and mix up again to see if it needs more water.


You don't want the clay layer very thick. 1/16" is more than enough.
A good way to get the blade clean so the cay sticks is to scrub it hard with the diluted slurry, wipe it clean, then give it the wash coat and let the excess drain off. The wash coat isn't much of a layer, more like a thin whitewash (graywash?). Letting each layer dry fully is also key to good success.
Click to expand...
I get that, Stacy. I was just sharing how trying to use sub-optimal methods & materials is unlikely to give good results. Anti-scale isn't hamon clay--- that was my point---and it will not act as an acceptable substitute for proper hamon clay. Fellow new guys (like myself) are often looking for shortcuts, and I wanted to share a failed one of mine so another new guy doesn't waste an equivalent amount of time and material searching for a shortcut that doesn't exist.
 
i like this guide:

My Hamon Process

I posted up a few photos around the intranets and had quite a few people contact me asking me how I get my Hamon's. After typing up a painfully long Email response to those that asked I thought why not share with the community (Bladeforums) that helped me get to where I am in this process. My...
www.bladeforums.com www.bladeforums.com
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
Rutland's has never worked well for me. It gives only a minimal hamon ... at best.
I bought the two-jar claying method from Nu-Clayer, but haven't tried it yet. It seems to be a very good system, but a tad pricey. Up to now I use satanite mixture to clay the blades.
Click to expand...
Thanks very much for your notes on your process!

The main reason I used Rutland was that I have a bunch leftover from using it in my forge. As you pointed out, it made a hamon but not a very bright one. I'll give satanite a try next. Is there a particular brand you prefer? I see "Mr Volcano" on Amazon, HBI at a few other places, and some that don't seem to have a brand. Local hardware stores come up with Rutland when I search for satanite.
 
Hightemptools sells it... Or they did a few years back when I bought some from them.
 
About .030" is good.

Too much thickness can reduce the hamon activity. Too thin and the edge can look like a strip of bacon.
 
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