Messed up hamon on w2 question.

BM(406)

BM(406)

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Jul 28, 2011
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I get this effect on 1075 a decent amount, which is why I quit using 1075. I've never had it happen to w2 before. It looks like a real bad hand sanding job or smears thru the hamon. Is it alloy banding? Is there a way to avoid it? Really sucks after all the work and it's a custom order.

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It's Aldo's .20" w2 and was stock removal and thermal cycled four times starting at 1,600°F. It does kinda look like bad hand sanding, but I have yet to hand sand it and you can see it is a belt finish. A30 gator, actually. And it can't be decarb, I ground from .10" down to .01" Plus you can see this kind of stuff in the steel while grinding before heat treat especially on 1075 or 5160.

Who knows what it is and how to fix/avoid it? Thanks for your wisdom!
 
This is actually a desirable result for most hand sand it and etch with hot vinegar to really bring it out make sure your fully quenching the blade


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But it's ugly. I've seen the cool banding, but this isn't cool lol

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How long did you soak it when hardening? And at what temp?


And it may look like that now, but it changes through the etch/polish cycle in my experience. What looks bad on the first etch looks pretty cool on the 6th.
 
I brought it up to temp then soaked for 10 minutes at 1460°. I'm hoping it turns out, but I've seen this before and am not optimistic.

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I have not really had this happen with W2 like I have with 1095. With 1095, a little bit longer soak at a little bit higher temp gives the more desirable form for me from my supply of steel.

I don't soak W2 that long, based on Don Hanson's recipe, fwiw. Maybe 5 minutes. Also I spent quite a bit of time and energy figuring out exactly where it was 1460 degrees in my furnace. The floor is cold and the front near the door is cold. Now I block knives up so they're practically next to the TC.

All of that said I'd really like to see it after a ferric etch.

I usually etch after cleaning up the initial decarb @ around 220 grit to make sure I'm getting what I want before finish grinding complete. I know that's not a big help now.
 
John I could be wrong, but if I recall what Don said is he doesn't soak when he uses his forge. I don't know if that would make a difference between a forge and a kiln, but I'm guessing it probably does.

OP, you're going to need to do more work than that to get a good hamon out of there. You might have something pretty nice waiting to be revealed.
 
Yes, that's what he's said. Since I can't watch it in the furnace I'm splitting the difference between no soak and 10 minutes. I like the results that's given me.
 
Same here, I prefer the activity I'm getting from the forge compared to what I was getting in a kiln.
 
That thread should be in the stickies. Maybe Stacy can move it there.
 
I too raise the blades up higher. I use an old piece of 5160 sitting in stilts as the "floor" of my kiln.

I read that link that was posted, pretty informative. Some of those effects are awesome and I get some of that stuff too. I'm happy when I do, but I think this is something else. Could be something I'm doing wrong tho I very rarely make mistakes ;-)

Here are a couple pics after a ferric etch, pretty ugly!

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I don't think any amount of sanding/etching will help this. I've gotten this on 1075 before and spent a billion hours trying to clean it up. I've even tried unsuccessfully to grind it out.....Probably a wasted blade....might do a stone wash and sell at massive discount as it performs well!

I would like to know what I'm doing wrong and how to avoid this. All the other blades from the same bar turned out great!
 
Do you air cool during your normalizing or do you quench after any of the heat cycles prior to hardening?
 
That's not alloy banding, that is caused by not getting all the black oxide off after each etch.
Basically you are etching that pattern onto the blade.
 
Thaks for the replies!

Kuraki, I let cool in the air during thermal cycling.

Mr. Hanson, it's in there fresh off the grinder before any etches.

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If you are thermal cycling, excess time at low temps or too many low temp cycles (below normalizing temps) will cause this. I spoke with Kevin Cashen a few years ago about something similar that seemed to follow sanding or grinding marks, and he commented that deformation of the grain structure during grinding can show up during etching, based on the carbide and alloy precipitation during heat treat. (I hope I got that correct.) you would have to grind past the original grind marks and deformations to get away from that. I now leave 0.020" extra on each side when I heat treat, to grind clean to fresh steel and I haven't had that problem since.
 
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