Nick Wheeler's full of it..........

Karl B. Andersen

Karl B. Andersen

Joined
Jul 27, 2003
Messages
5,663
..........or at least, that's what I thought a month or so ago. :eek:
Seriously, Nick posted up a picture of a W2 knife he did with a rather spectacular hamon and stated that he had created that piece using heat and time, etc., only, and with no clay.
Keep in mind, it was a pretty spectacular hamon, and I had seen others in the past he had posted stating the same set of "facts".
Well, this last one - and, Nick, if you want to re-post that one here as well, it's fine by me - had such a special and nicely geometric hamon that I really could not see how it could have been made without clay.
Then, I did this one this week.
No clay.
The only thing that influenced this hamon is steel type, blade geometry, heat, time and quench.
I applied no media of influence on this blade.
I post this here to give fruit to your thinking process when considering what's going on in your blade during the hardening process.
There's nothing special about this knife - it's a simple W1 Brute de Forge with a mortised tang.
But, I hope you do appreciate the NATURAL hamon.







 
Well, Karl, I'm not Nick, but I happen to be lucky enough to own this little gem made by his hands. :D Time and temperature only for this hamon in W2. No clay. These are a mix of my own pictures and his.













And Karl, I love your zebra or tiger stripe hamon! :)

--nathan
 
Nathan, thanks for posting that. I recall that knife.
Nick pulled off one of the most extraordinary hamons I've seen on that one.
Very inspiring. :thumbup:
 
Are you using a torch to kinda paint that hamon on the blade. I took a one day lesson from jim Crowell and we did a 1084 blade and used a torch to develop a really nice looking hamon on a blade. I have done a few myself, but they did not look quite as good as the one Jim and I did. He has a bit more experience than me. OK, about a million times more.
 
By the way, that is really cool Karl. Please post up the finished product. Just FYI.. I met Karl at the Arkansas show and he makes some really nice take down knives.
 
M forge, it's more about controlling the temperature, considering your geometries, knowing your steel properties, and timing your quenches correctly. With the thickness of the spine, there is enough thermal mass to slow cooling enough during a breif quench to not quite reach the martensite transition. During the same brief quench, the thinner edge cools to transition to martensite. Interrupting the quench can further delay the spine's transition and cause it to hit the nose and form pearlite instead while at the same time bleeding heat towards the edge. This can create a bit of an autotemper and add activity to the hamon. Then you can complete the quench, having created your transitions which make up the hamon.

You'll need good knowledge of temperature. Too low and you'll cool the entire thing in the initial quench. Too high, and your quench timing will the thrown off and the hamon too low.

--nathan
 
Nick IS full of ...... out of the box thinking that works..... the type that makes you scream at your self ..."why did I not think of that??"

His sanding video helped me TONS!!!!!!!! and Im sure Im not the only one.
 
Yep... Nick is full of it... in fact, he oozes it from every pore and regurgitates it upon us lucky lot. Hopefully his condition is contagious.:p
 
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