Question for the hamon guys

I just reread the W2 heat treat thread as there's a good discussion at the end about this. Mete says it's coming from the liquid solid state change at the mill. Don talks about promoting it but never really says how. Then there's wootz which I'm not sure I exactly know what that is.

Anyway pics are good right? These are my first W2 blades, I basically followed Don's heat treat. They were hard as anything I've ever done as quenched, never had a file skate quite like these did but I didn't get numbers as I was crunched for time so they went right in temper.

cN7ROn.jpg


I'm going to do my kith knife today and attempt to get more detail/finer patterns.
 
Willie71 said:
Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I'm just starting to get this stuff figured out. :o

I was pretty beat last night. Looking at the pics today, I think it does look like either alloy banding, or carbide segregation.
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Relative to me you're the expert ;)
 
kuraki said:
I just reread the W2 heat treat thread as there's a good discussion at the end about this. Mete says it's coming from the liquid solid state change at the mill. Don talks about promoting it but never really says how. Then there's wootz which I'm not sure I exactly know what that is.

Anyway pics are good right? These are my first W2 blades, I basically followed Don's heat treat. They were hard as anything I've ever done as quenched, never had a file skate quite like these did but I didn't get numbers as I was crunched for time so they went right in temper.

cN7ROn.jpg



I'm going to do my kith knife today and attempt to get more detail/finer patterns.
Click to expand...

Those are very nice. They don't look too forced. I like a more traditional looking activity, rather than the zigzag that seems popular now. Here's a good link discussing the traditional patterns.

http://www.ksky.ne.jp/~sumie99/hamonpatterns.html

I tend to go for choji, hitatsuri, or tobi yaki.
 
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S.Alexander said:
What type of steel was it? I get those kinds of lines when I try for hamons with 1084 steel. I dont know what causes it.
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Sorry I didn't see your post last night.

It's aldo's 1075, I've had the bar about a month so I think his recent batch of that tells you anything.
 
Willie71 said:
More information on the banding/striations.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php/1402268-Alloy-banding-Carbide-segregation
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I went back and read this thread and the w2 thread again, thanks for posting the link by the way.

Reading back through that got me to wondering if you could maybe manipulate the banding in any way. Maybe by selective etching to get them to show just where you wanted. Of course I didn't know they were there at all until I etched.

Just seems like it would be neat to have more control of where the showed up. I would love to get a hamon with no banding in it, and have banding outside of the actual hamon.

I am very much at the infant stages of working with hamon this is really the first decent one of gotten. I know I don't have the knowledge or skill yet to much except polish what's there, but the idea sort of popped in my head while rubbing on a blade for hours on end.
 
MBurks said:
I went back and read this thread and the w2 thread again, thanks for posting the link by the way.

Reading back through that got me to wondering if you could maybe manipulate the banding in any way. Maybe by selective etching to get them to show just where you wanted. Of course I didn't know they were there at all until I etched.

Just seems like it would be neat to have more control of where the showed up. I would love to get a hamon with no banding in it, and have banding outside of the actual hamon.

I am very much at the infant stages of working with hamon this is really the first decent one of gotten. I know I don't have the knowledge or skill yet to much except polish what's there, but the idea sort of popped in my head while rubbing on a blade for hours on end.
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The metallurgy of the different processes is pretty academic stuff. I think it would be difficult to control where it shows up, as either it is set at the mill, the result of low temperature cycling, or quenching from bainite. None of those allow manipulation of where it shows up as far as I can tell. Maybe one of the metallurgists can correct me if I'm wrong on that. The processes are different between hypereuctoid, and euctoid/hypoeuctoid steels too, so what works on W2 won't necessarily work on 1075.
 
Willie71 said:
The metallurgy of the different processes is pretty academic stuff. I think it would be difficult to control where it shows up, as either it is set at the mill, the result of low temperature cycling, or quenching from bainite. None of those allow manipulation of where it shows up as far as I can tell. Maybe one of the metallurgists can correct me if I'm wrong on that. The processes are different between hypereuctoid, and euctoid/hypoeuctoid steels too, so what works on W2 won't necessarily work on 1075.
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I wonder though if you could etch only where you wanted it to show, assuming it's in the steel but invisible before etching?

Just a thought I had, I have many thoughts and they usually just cause problems for me!
 
MBurks said:
I wonder though if you could etch only where you wanted it to show, assuming it's in the steel but invisible before etching?

Just a thought I had, I have many thoughts and they usually just cause problems for me!
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Time for you to do some testing and report the results back to us.

I plan to start a hamon specific thread. I have a bunch of pics, but not enough time. Maybe tomorrow? :thumbup:
 
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