Six Tanto and Wakizashi

Richard338

Richard338

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Joined
May 3, 2005
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With a lot of things shut down at the moment, on Saturday I drove the family 940 miles from DC to Missouri in just 13 hours. I had been stuck in DC for several months visiting home/shop only briefly once per month. I had been following this forum and buying things like EDM stones and Rhynowet paper based on the discussions, but almost no chance to do anything. Now I suddenly can spend some time in the shop, so I have started a family of six Tantos and Wakis.

I bought some 26C3 0.150" thickness to do two with hamon.
I got some Shiro2 takefu san mai for two more (0.200" thickness), and some M4 in 0.245" thickness for one large Waki. That's only 5...well I have commissioned one large tanto (or small waki) from a top maker, so I know that at least one will look awesome...

Last month I had time to profile two Osoraku style tantos out of the 26C3, but only time to partially grind the bevels on one of them. No one is doing nicer hamons in this material than Robert Erickson, and he was kind enough to do the HT for me (estimated RHC = 63).

Yesterday and today I profiled the san mai blades, in a subtly different Hira style.
The 0.245" M4 waki was surprisingly hard to hacksaw, but the profile is also done.

Next I will partially grind the other 26C3 Osoraku, but I will leave the san mai until after HT.
I will also partially grind the large waki, including a distal taper. I'll send the san mai and M4 pieces to Peters'. I don't know what their turnaround time is right now, but at least I have the one tanto to finish and play with polishing and etching to bring out the hamon.
I'll keep this updated.
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San Mai layers along 36 grit profile edge.
 
Richard338 said:
I will also partially grind the large waki, including a distal taper. I'll send the san mai and M4 pieces to Peters'.
Click to expand...

M4 is very difficult to grind post HT, I would suggest doing as much as you can to get that M4 waki as close to final dimensions as you can. Remember it has to be heat treated either in foil or inert gas so decarb is minimal, talk to Peters about how thin they recommend you do the edges prior to them HT'ing it. Much easier to remove material prior.
 
Thanks, yes I plan to do most of the grind on that one preHT, especially since I plan to specify a pretty high hardness number. I will try to talk to Brad at Peters' before I finish. I'm usually not too worried about doing a lot of grinding after HT, but I could tell just from hacksawing the annealed material that this might be a little different.
 
I would advise against a high hardness for M4 in a wakizashi ... unless it is a shelf queen. The edge will be plenty sharp at RC60, but at Rc64 it is more likely to chip or have a blade break.

I spent some more time looking at your blades. The styles are classic and well proportioned. Most folks make them far too fat and the tip with an exaggeratedly blunt kissaki. Your osoraku tsukuri is very subtle, which is good. The HT shows great promise of a stunning hamon. I will follow this thread to see how you polish them.
 
Thanks Stacy, I'll look at the toughness charts and maybe stay around 60. Of the 5 the waki is most likely to see use.
Yes, I look forward to seeing how well I can bring out the hamon on the two in 26C3.
 
mooniesdl3 said:
M4 is very difficult to grind post HT, I would suggest doing as much as you can to get that M4 waki as close to final dimensions as you can. Remember it has to be heat treated either in foil or inert gas so decarb is minimal, talk to Peters about how thin they recommend you do the edges prior to them HT'ing it. Much easier to remove material prior.
Click to expand...

I spoke with Brad at Peters'. He has a "Bladesports toughness protocol" for M4 that ends up around 60-61 hardness. On this piece he said I can (and should) grind the edge as thin as 0.01" before HT...
 
That is what I suspected he would say. The only issue is his use of a torch to straighten warping. You might want to talk to him about that.
 
M4 at over Rc61 is tougher than 1095 or O1 at Rc58. Rc63/64 would likely be fine. I think the bladesports guys are running Rc63+ with M4. I have not had a failure at Rc63-65 with z-wear or V4e so far, and M4 is similar in performance. These steels have redefined how hard we can run knives without damage. My experience says any application that has used O1 or 1095 at Rc60 will be fine at Rc63/64 in the high alloy steels.
 
Willie71 said:
M4 at over Rc61 is tougher than 1095 or O1 at Rc58. Rc63/64 would likely be fine. I think the bladesports guys are running Rc63+ with M4. I have not had a failure at Rc63-65 with z-wear or V4e so far, and M4 is similar in performance. These steels have redefined how hard we can run knives without damage. My experience says any application that has used O1 or 1095 at Rc60 will be fine at Rc63/64 in the high alloy steels.
Click to expand...
That was roughly my understanding and I was leaning toward harder, but Brad says that he has played with it a lot and has a lot of data from abusive and destructive testing. He feels that he has a pretty well optimized protocol by now.
I'll let him work his magic and assume that it will stand up to my fairly moderate use.
 
Some progress the last couple days.
I rough ground the waki using 36 grit.
I went flat until the edge was about 0.06" and I was getting up close to the spine.
Then I convexed it to about 0.02".
I left the tip and junction area a bit less finished as I will do that carefully after HT (the last part by hand).
It was awesome how much weight was lost and how it comes alive for swinging.

After the time spent doing the waki I could feel my grinding touch returning a bit, so I rough ground the other Osoraku style tanto also using 36 grit.
It was actually smoother and easier to control than the first one that I did at 60 grit.
(nothing beats a fresh 36 grit belt)

I also did the spine (mune) on the two san mai and the waki.
15 degrees each side, so 150 degrees at the top.

I'll try to get the four pieces into the mail, off to HT tomorrow.
That will leave me with only the one Osoraku style tanto that was already heat treated, and plenty of time to spend polishing...

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That's quite a good looking bunch of blades!
Looking forward to seeing your final results. Hopefully the hamon will come out well for you!
 
Thanks, we'll soon see. I started polishing the one, beginning with edm stones. They cut very well but still I have many hours of polishing ahead.
 
Some solid progress.
I did a few light passes on the grinder and then did almost all the shaping with a 120 grid EDM stone.
A bit slow, but no chance for mistakes. I got the entire blade smoothed and convexed right to sharp.
The shape is exquisite, I'd love to carve a roast with this.
After that I ran quickly through the grits of stones I have (120, 180, 220, 320, 400, 600) before switching to Rhynowet paper.
I started the paper back at 240 and went slowly up to 2000 (320, 400, 600, 800, 1200, 1500, 2000), then used the 3M polishing paper in 4000 and 6000.
The entire blade is mirrored (I didn't bother with what will be covered up by habaki and handle).

It's a bit hard to photograph, you can see the stucco on my ceiling in the first image.
Next up is etching to bring out the hamon.
I might try vinegar and see if I can get a light wispy hamon, if not I'll switch to FC and settle for the darker one.

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Is the blade bevel all one smooth surface from machi to kissaki? I don't see the
yokote at the osoraku point.
 
The yokote on an osoraku tsukuri blade usually shows in the polishing by having a different finish on each side. This is most easily done by polishing the whole blade and then taping a thin slat or wood, or putting a piece of tape at the yokote, and polishing the kissaki in a different finish ... usually a matte or frosty look. It can also be done on a fully polished blade like yours by painting the ha and ji with a masking compound and etching the kissaki with dilute acid to get a frosty blade in that area.

osoraku_zukuri_blade_shape_by_dougroll.jpg

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Cool, I'll try something like that on at least one of them. Thanks for the photos, very clear what you are talking about.
 
Well, I have struggled a couple days with bringing out the hamon.
I started with wiping on fairly concentrated FC and the reaction seemed too fast and aggressive.
I repolished it and started 15 minute baths in white vinegar after reading Willie71 in "The Hamon Thread".
This was working, and while polishing between each soak, the piece was taking on a beautiful very slight gray appearance, but glossy.
It seemed that the vinegar was not etching as well after the first couple soaks, so I added a small fraction of my FC solution.
This was working well and was still controlled.
I thought I was getting more efficient with the polishing. I wrapped an EDM stone in the 3M paper and it was working well until a SET BACK!
The stone made its way a tiny bit through the cloth. I didn't hear or see anything different, but close inspection shows some very light scratches.

The first image is direct sunlight and exaggerates the scratches. The second one is indoors and shows the hamon as darker.

In any case, I'm going to drop back to 600 (hopefully not lower) grit and redo the polish until the scratches are gone.
One option based on a suggestion from Stacy is at the end, to try to achieve a different, brushed look on the part indicated in blue (like Stacy's first image above).
I'm not sure about that yet, but I'm going back to sanding and cycles of bringing out the hamon (hopefully without scratching it this time)

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It is wiser to use a bar of hard wood, bronze, or aluminum as a backing block when sanding. On some sanding tasks in togi, I use a block of lignum vitae with a very hard leather surface on it.
 
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