Temper line/hamon in 1084

U

unky_gumbi

Joined
Aug 28, 2009
Messages
7,951
Just for the fun of it I ground out a blade last week and put some clay on it before HT. I wasn't expecting much if anything from it, but at 800g I started to see a definite line between where the clay was and wasn't. I still have a lot of sanding to go to get rid of any of the pre HT scratches, but at what point should I start etching the blade to make the line stand out more. It doesn't look to be one of those nice wavy hamons, more of a straight line about 1/2" up from the edge. This one one of those 1084 practice knives I do and experiment on so I think its kind of cool that I actually got something out of it:p
 
I have also pulled a hamon out of Aldo's 1084FG. I got a wavy line but din't pursue it to see if I got any activity..... I doubt it.
 
Oh I doubt that there is much if any activity there, but I am willing to put in the time to see, simply because I have nothing else to do till I get some materials in the new year. I will try and get the blade sanded out to 2500 tomorrow and post a picture or two of what I am talking about in the way of the line. I just don't know how to accent it or at what point I should start trying to accent the line:confused:
 
OK I sanded this out to 2000, and hit it with a little vinegar to take this picture.

DSC02853.jpg


It was hard to get it to show up with my camera and I had to play with the picture a bit in a photo editor, it shows on my monitor. You can see the distinct line about 2/3rds up from the edge, the line will actually shift when the blade is tilted. Also I can see little lines dropping down from the main line. At first I thought they were scratches, but they are not. Both sides are roughly the same, is there anything I can do to make this stand out more?

And after a couple of hours of etching and polishing

DSC02864.jpg


DSC02863.jpg


No great activity, but a definite clay temper line.

I stumbled on to one of Nick's threads and his little video about this stuff so I think thats about all there is to this thread:o
 
Last edited:
Unky, because of the slightly elevated amount of Manganese in the mix, you can't expect a whole lot of activity in 1084. I have made a bunch of blades from 1084 and tried (somewhat unsuccessfully) to get a stand-out line. You will get a line (most of the time), but not one that follows the clay line.

I suppose that that little extra amount of Manganese is (just) one of the reasons that 1084 is so heat-treat friendly, but if you are looking for a dazzling hamon line, you are probably chasing a ghost that can never be cornered. :)

Robert
 
I got these out of Admirals 1084 a long time ago...Some of my first knives so please excuse them:o
Picture250-1.jpg

Picture186-1.jpg
 
I wasn't expecting anything when I did this one, I was expecting to find a crack, but that ping I heard must have just been the coffee can forge cooling down. I do have a piece of W2 here to really try the hamon thing, but i am waiting till I get my full sized forge finished. I have a few vet bills I had to take care of so that put the forge project on hold for a bit.
 
Thanks for posting your results. I know that a wispy, cloudy hamon isn't likely with 1084, but I find even the "temper line" or whatever you define it as, on 1084 attractive. Did you decide on a method, or get advice on the best grits and etchants to bring out what you have on that blade?

I have 40' of 1080 and 1084 so I'm looking forward to trying this on a couple blades for fun.
 
I just guessed at what I was doing, based on what I have read here:o (Nick Wheeler information:p) that is why I was expecting to find a crack after hearing the ping. I used my little coffee can forge out in the garage, and its just a little on the cool side here so I guess the forge cooled faster than normal. I was so convinced that it had cracked that I didn't even clean the blade up for 4-5 days, I just tempered it and set it aside.

The clean up was fairly simple, Norax U264 X22 belt (aprox 750g), then hand sanded out to a fairly clean 2500g. After that just warn vinegar for 5 minutes, polish with some Peek metal polish, and repeat till I ran out of vinegar. I only had about a 1/4 of vinegar or I would have kept going at it. You can see in the last picture there is a touch of a line starting to show right where the temper line starts to curl up to the spine. There are a few other places like that that wouldn't show in the picture, so more etching may have brought them out more.
 
Hesparus said:
Did you guys all quench in engineered fluids?
Click to expand...

I did this fairly low budget, and got lucky. I used hardware store refractory cement for clay, a coffee can forge heated by a pair of propane torches, and some poorly heated canola oil (might have been around 90F).
 
So I liked it enough to finish the knife off. This is one of those reasons to always use a good steel to practice with.

Steel: 1/8" 1084
Scales: Gator Skin Afzelia Xylay
Blade length: 4.7" to front of scales
Handle: 4.1"

_DSC0196.jpg


_DSC0190.jpg


I noticed after uploading the pictures that I have a little Tru Oil on the ricasso I need to clean up:o

All that is left is to make a sheath and sharpen it.
 
Nicely done! Lovely knife for a "practice" knife! And a good point about using good steel to practice with.
 
That's a really elegant blade. I hope to treat my first 1084 knives soon. I'll be happy as long as they come through safe and hard, but I'd be lying if I said there wasn't a glimmer of hope for something fancy like that on the side.

-Daizee
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top