Little Vest Bowie- Koa and W2 w/ 'No Clay' hamon...

Willie71 said:
The other way to do it is get the whole blade up to an austentizing temp at the low end of the scale, quench, and interrupt the quench so not enough heat is pulled from the thicker parts of the blade, while hardening the edge, tip, and parts if the spine. Different than an edge quench, as the martensite will form in whisps and clouds throughout the steel giving the cloudy look so desired. This is the method I use, and am finishing a knife with very similar profile to this one right now.
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thank you guys (and merry Christmas btw)! i'll try those concepts with my batch of Aldo's w2!!!
 
Thanks for all the comments guys. I've been using black g-10 fittings for quite a while now and lately, I get more orders for black g-10 fittings than almost all the other materials combined. I like all sorts of fittings but these are quite popular.

stezann said:
It is a real beauty!!

John, if you don't mind i have a question about the whole clayless hamon procedure.
You used salts, so i assume the blade would have been fully austenitized, regardless the temperature used; What is your oil quench? If it were park's50 then it should have been able to complete transform the martensite given the blade thickness, so i wonder why and how you got that incredible "natural" hamon?
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Hi Stezann. Yes I use salts and parks 50 for the quench, time and temperature play a role but so also does blade geometry. This is relative thick at the ricasso but it's ground thin and has drastic and quick distal taper to the tip. It makes it difficult for the thicker steel to harden, even if it does get hot enough to harden, it can't cool quickly enough with a really fast steel like w2. Sometimes, as mentioned by Will, I use a bit of an interrupted quench too.

Time, temp, geometry of the blade and grinds and interrupted quench are the four main factors to experiment with. Thank you much for your comment.
 
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