The Hamon Thread

[Storm W]

Salt pots are the ideal, or use a steel like Hitachi white/W2 with low temps and short soaks in a forge or kiln. Use a thin layer of clay, and let the steel do it’s thing. With W2, I use 1440f to get a whispy white. Hitachi white, I think I did 1425f. The vinegar brings out the white in the transition, while the lemon juice darkens the hardened steel. If I do too many lemon etches, a quick dunk in the vinegar brings it back out. I find pumice “takes away” less white when polishing compared to the 1500sic powdered abrasives.

This is Hitachi white which was clayed, but I decided to go clayless, so I chipped the clay off. There was a bit of residue, but I didn’t scrape it off. The clayless hamon followed the residue but has the cloudy appearance. 1425f, into DT-48. I could never get a proper pic of the hamon. Probably the best i’ve done.

Or maybe this one: this was clayless with just the offset d-grind started. W2, 1450f on this one into DT-48.

IMG_5926 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr


IMG_1597 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr

My clay application typically looks like this:

IMG_0713 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr

Edit, pics messed up. Carver is Hitachi white, chef’s knife is W2.

I have to bring this up but has anyone looked at lime juice? I'm not trying to be funny. Lemons are citric acid but limes have malic acid. I don't know the ratio but they might do something slightly different.

 

[Willie71]

I have to bring this up but has anyone looked at lime juice? I'm not trying to be funny. Lemons are citric acid but limes have malic acid. I don't know the ratio but they might do something slightly different.

No, i’ve never tried it. Would be worth experimenting with.

 

[Jason Volkert]

Been working on this 1 for a little bit now. Its W2 with clayless Hamon. It's kind of strange the shape of the hamon with that dip in the middle but I'll take

 

[Willie71]

View attachment 1195168 Been working on this 1 for a little bit now. Its W2 with clayless Hamon. It's kind of strange the shape of the hamon with that dip in the middle but I'll take

Gorgeous blade shape!

 

[Jason Volkert]

Gorgeous blade shape!

Thanks Willie. I wish the Hamon had better activity.

 

[Willie71]

Thanks Willie. I wish the Hamon had better activity.

I find clayless is either WOW!, or, ho hum. It’s a very fine line between those extremes.

 

[Josh Rider]

here are a couple I’ve done with 26c3.
The kwaiken is a work in progress.

 

[Josh Rider]

Here’s some 1095 I’ve been using. I’m not getting good results with it.

 

[Willie71]

here are a couple I’ve done with 26c3.
The kwaiken is a work in progress.
View attachment 1339529 View attachment 1339531

What austentizing temp and soak? Those look really good.

 

[Josh Rider]

What austentizing temp and soak? Those look really good.

Thanks Warren,
The kitchen knife I didn’t soak, 1460° In an evenheat. parks 50.
The Kwaiken was taken to just above magnetic in a forge, no soak, parks 50 quench. Trying to get more activity out of the steel.

 

[Willie71]

Thanks Warren,
The kitchen knife I didn’t soak, 1460° In an evenheat. parks 50.
The Kwaiken was taken to just above magnetic in a forge, no soak, parks 50 quench. Trying to get more activity out of the steel.

I’m going to do a couple grain refinement cycles on my next one to see if that improves activity. The steel doesn’t need it, but I wonder if we can get better esthetics from that.

 

[Josh Rider]

I’m going to do a couple grain refinement cycles on my next one to see if that improves activity. The steel doesn’t need it, but I wonder if we can get better esthetics from that.

i did thermal cycle the kwaiken. I keep hearing how this steel won’t hamon well, but I’d like to keep trying.

 

[Richard338]

I'm about to update my tanto/waki thread, but I figured I would post my results with achieving a hamon here.
These two pieces are 26C3.
I got some FFFF pumice and tried to use it to polish between etches using a cotton ball. It was removing oxides as the cotton was turning black, but at least the way I was doing it, it was sort of smearing the entire finish into a dull gray.
I went back to etching in FC/vinegar and polishing with a tiny bit of breakfree and the 3M 4000 grit (pink) polishing paper.
I use a wooden block with some folded paper as a backing and polish pretty vigorously.
The pictures below are after about 4 cycles.
It looks quite different depending on the lighting.
The first image shows how in some light it can look darker.
The rest show the whiteness. You can see some really interesting activity in these blades, so I'm fairly pleased with how they turned out.

 

[Josh Rider]

Richard, thanks for sharing, it looks like you did get some good activity. Maybe it’s just the lighting or the picture, but that top one looks like it may have come too close to the edge. I’m wondering if you have a softer edge on that one.

 

[Richard338]

It's partly the photo. The bottom image is of that same piece and you can see a bit better. It is hard along the edge and did take a good edge.
Since that one was done a few weeks before the other one, and I could see it was closer than I would like, I ground the second one thinner preHT.
It seemed to work as the other one came out better.

 

[Josh Rider]

I see, we’ll the profiles look great and you look like you got a lot of activity.
Great looking blades

 

[Richard338]

I see, we’ll the profiles look great and you look like you got a lot of activity.
Great looking blades

Thanks. It is great to figure out the process, and I want all my knives to be functional, but realistically, from this batch the only one I expect to cut with is the M4 waki which is a uniform HT from Peters'.

 

[Willie71]

I have a mini tanto, 4” blade in the third grain refinement cycle now, and will quench in brine. Fingers crossed!

 

[Willie71]

I’m not sure if the ffff pumice will work as well on the 26c3 as the W2. I dug my 1500sic powdered abrasives out after my last lousy attempt at polishing.

 

[Robert Erickson]

Here's my latest in 26C3. I use Satanite to clay the blade. Then I used 1460 for 15 min into Parks #50. I etch in FeCl for 10 min and then use a piece of felt to dip and rub multiple times. I then use blue (9 micron/2000grit) 3M polishing paper soaked in WD40 to polish the hamon. This one shows off some alloy banding as well.