Re-etching a hamon?

[itadakimasu]

Hello guys,
I have a question. I just obtained a nice looking tanto with a hamon. It had some rust spots and two or three dots of pitting. While I can live with the pits, I thought that I could remove the rust spots and I did with a metal polish.

Unfortunately the hamon got weaker and in one place even disapeared. Is it possible to simply re-etch the hamon? If so, how could I do this with only basic "tools"?

Best regards,
itadakimasu

 

[AVigil]

Go find Nick Wheelers hamon etching on youtube.

You can bring it back out with white vineagar and lemon juice

 

[itadakimasu]

Thank you, I will try to find it on Youtube. So I can just etch it again and I don't have to do anything after that, like polishing again with stones or something similar. If it's just etching, then it would be great!

 

[itadakimasu]

Hey guys,
I need your help.


First of all I polished the knife, then I etched it in hot apple vinegar, after the first try I could see the Hamon, I read that's supposed to happen.
I etched 6 times, 3 minutes each. During each run, I used fine steel wool to remove the black oxides. After the etching cycles the whole blade was grey.

I then used sandpaper grit 3000. Now I stopped because I think something did not work out, how I wanted it to. The hamon is super-faint. And only visible on one side, on the other side you can't even see it.
Any ideas what I did wrong, what can I do better?

Steel is 1.2080.

 

[Fred.Rowe]

Stay away from the steel wool. WD40 will mix with the oxide so you can wipe it away with a soft cloth. After the oxides are removed polish the blades surface with Flitz or Simachrome, I use Mother's metal polish. Do the polishing above and below the actual hamon line. Wipe the blade clean and etch again, repeat the polishing. The end result will be a polished blade with a distinct hamon line, this process brings out the finer points of the hamon. Keep the etch times short.