random hamon experiment

RMLamey

RMLamey

Joined
Nov 13, 1998
Messages
2,598
When I was first making knives I would get all kind of need hamon activity without using clay. Just from watching the edge come up to temp. and quinching in my home made vegie/olive oil mixture. Unfortunately back then I really didnt know anything about etching/polishing to bring out the activity.

Been trying to recreate some of the "random" hamons without using clay. No real advantage in this method, just tinkering around. This is one of the better ones from the past few weeks. This was the 3rd quinch, not that it matters, and with a "quickie" polsih-
100_3148.jpg


100_3143.jpg
 
Nice! How do you polish it to bring out the hamon, I know that katana makers use those bitty stones, but is there something that you look out for when doing it?
 
Keith those are "finger stones" if you're talking about the small, squarish ones used in the final polishing stages on the hamon.

Welllllll Matt, you going to share the process :p
 
This was just a quickie polish, hand sanded to 400 grit, etch, polish with iron oxide rouge/wd-40 and a block of micarta wrapped with a cheap paper towel... thats about it for the working type of finish you see above.
 
RMLamey said:
This was just a quickie polish, hand sanded to 400 grit, etch, polish with iron oxide rouge/wd-40 and a block of micarta wrapped with a cheap paper towel... thats about it for the working type of finish you see above.
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You mean that is all I've had to do...this entire time I have been going all the way to 1500grit and etching then a 2000 grit. They still look horrible.
Yours looks awesome.
 
Wow, that's amazing; I had no idea you could get this effect without clay coating! If I may, what kind of steel is this, and do you heat with a forge, torch, or oven, and do you quench the whole blade or just the edge?
 
Paul, Matt heats his blades with his MOJO... and that is why he is one of my heroes. :eek:

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

BTW- You can't use WD-40 Matt! I just read that thread about WD the other day and found out it is totally worthless and makes me less of a man to have it in my shop! ;)
 
NickWheeler said:
Paul, Matt heats his blades with his MOJO... and that is why he is one of my heroes. :eek:

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

BTW- You can't use WD-40 Matt! I just read that thread about WD the other day and found out it is totally worthless and makes me less of a man to have it in my shop! ;)
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MOJO, huh? Now where did I put that drill/syringe.....
 
I heard Matt heat treats his blades by holding them in his armpits:eek: and quenches in panther piss from the panthers he keeps caged in the smithy to wrestle before hammering :eek:
 
NickWheeler said:
and makes me less of a man to have it in my shop! ;)
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Having small rocks is what makes you less of a man, Wheeler!:D:D


I've tried your jeweler's rouge/wd40 combo before and couldn't get it to work no matter what I tried... I'm kind of thinking that Nick might be dead on with the 'mojo' allusion!
 
"Allusion" ???? What's with your fancy, smancy $5 words?!?! You know I don't speak French Canadian!!! :grumpy:

:p ;)
 
Matt,

I would be very interested in what pre treatment if any was done to the steel.

Are your following a particular normalization routine?
 
Thanks all for the kind words, really there is no magic! I have worked pretty hard at it though, and was lucky to have some guidance from Fikes on heat treat/polish etc.

The steel is 1095 from Admiral, had similar results with other 1095 and W2. Actually W2 works a little better, get crazier activity.

The real problem in doing it this way is that it is not very reliable. For me it only works well about 1/2 the time, its a bit tricky to know just when to quinch so you dont harden the entire blade, or worse yet not harden enough of the blade. Just have to "watch the shadows disappear" and quinch when they are still in the spine.

I always quinch the entire blade, edge down and "cut" back and forth in my tank for between a 15 and 30 count depending on the blade.

Matthew, i have had other makers also tell me they tried the rouge/wd 40 polish with less then good results, not sure what the difference could be. I just spray the blade down with WD, "scrape" the rouge bar so it sprinkles over the blade and just start rubbing back and forth with the micarta block/paper towel. When the black is gone, i wipe it off and start the process again, do this until im happy. Then maybe go over it with a dry paper towel.


Nick, dont let your love for WD-40 be undermined by the jealous rants of another! I buy it by the gallon.... and thanks for your kind words, means alot coming from a stickler like you.

Stephan, standard normalization, 3 cycles, and this blade was pre heated. Nothing real technical though, my working forge was hot, i turned it off, put the blade in with the tip poking out the back (didnt want to heat up the thinner section too much). After I started picking up some color at the choil I moved to my heat treating oven that was already at 1500. Put the blade in, watched the heat crawl up through the edge and dunked it.
Here is a pic of a blade i made back in 97-98. I recently got it back for a clean up, and noticed it had a nice line. There was alot more activity in this one then the pic actually shows-
100_2961.jpg
 
Very cool, I got something like that on a large wire rope bowie one time, normaly I get a pretty even qeuench line though.
 
Matt, Very cool. I like these Hamon best. They dont look "painted " on. I prefer the randomness. Looks like you got it dialed in.

Shawn
 
RMLamey said:
Stephan, standard normalization, 3 cycles, and this blade was pre heated. Nothing real technical though, my working forge was hot, i turned it off, put the blade in with the tip poking out the back (didnt want to heat up the thinner section too much). After I started picking up some color at the choil I moved to my heat treating oven that was already at 1500. Put the blade in, watched the heat crawl up through the edge and dunked it.
Click to expand...

That's interesting, because I know a guy that gets a fantastically active hamon out of 5160 by doing several very precise descending normalization cycles, and the out come changes DRAMATICALLY with any change to his routine.
 
Stephen, ive tried various methods with 5160, can always get nice bold lines, but not alot of activity. Would like to hear his recipe if you dont mind sharing.

oh yeah, forgot to add, I generally pre heat or soak the ricasso area a bit simply so it heats a bit more evenly with the thinner section of the blade. I dont find any real change in hamon activity by soaking. I just like to make sure i have enough of the edge at the choil hardened. I hate to see a hardening line drop off while there is still some edge back at the choil, or find one that dips down way too close to the edge etc.... but thats another topic.
 
Matt, nice job and control, I like to do my hamons that way, I like the randomness it can create sometimes heres one I did awhile back that came out pretty random it was w1 without clay
ed_1.jpg
 
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