The hamon.. what does it mean to you?

ScottRoush

ScottRoush

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I've been thinking and working a lot with hamons lately and through the generous help of a nihonto sword polisher, I've been introduced to a whole new world and level of finish. I'm not sure that I will ever take it that far... but just learning a little bit about it completely changed my view of heat treating and finishing. All of this made me wonder about the collectors and knife aficionados that spend the extra money on knives finished out to display the hamon. Is it purely aesthetics? Or does it give you some degree of confidence in the heat treat and the skills of the maker? And not just a bold, etched quench line.. but highly active hamons with repeatable structure that are repeatable by the maker.

Something that happened to me over the last couple of days got me to thinking about that. I'm still very new to knife making.. and hamons are something that I've enjoyed doing but I've never had consistent results.. which is something I'm working on right now. For example.. this week I quenched an 11 inch 1075 blade with the goal of producing a chaotic hamon with lots of topography.. or hataraki. I wanted to really feather in the critical temperature after several sub-critical heats to get as many fine structures as possible and then polish it out in a more traditional way. My result was this (polished to 2500):

IMG_1209.jpg


The blade came out of the quench great and skated a file along the whole length of the blade.. including the spine (which I didn't add clay too). But didn't show much with a test etch. But that was fine.. I was looking for a subtle, complex hamon. Very cool looking at first.. sort of a hitatsura type hamon. But after hours of hand rubbing and gentle etching... I finally realized that there was no actual hardening line.. or nioi-guchi. All that's there are the fine structures with no true martensitic-based hamon.

So.. back to the forge. Some normalization to re-grow the grains a bit, same clay layout, but slightly higher forge temp and longer soak.

Here it is now (220 machine finish):

IMG_1210.jpg



The reason why I'm showing that example is that if I wasn't going for a hamon and I just used a file to skate the edge.. I would not have known that I did not have a fully hardened blade. Now heavy testing would have shown a different picture.. and I'm not always saying that the hamon always means a higher performing blade. But.. in my opinion.. it can truly be a 'badge' showing the skill of the maker. And I was just curious if other folks felt that way.
 
Very interesting, I never really thought all that much about the hamon. I was under the general impression that the hamon was mostly for the look. I guess I should also keep an eye out for your future work.
 
Scott, I am still relatively new to collecting forged knives...I have always appreciated a temper line but am very picky about hamons.

I would further state that when they are done extremely well and follow the blade in a way that is pleasing to the eye it also does inspire confidence in a makers skill and control.

Regards jeff
 
Some random thoughts.

First of all - that is a seriously cool blade - I look forward to seeing that one finished.

As for the hamon - I like variety in my collection in terms of materials and blade finishes, so blades with an active hamon are a welcome addition to the mix (along with damascus in various patterns, laminates, satin finish, forge textured and coated blades). I certainly appreciate the extra work that goes into polishing the blade to show the hamon in its best light. I am not, nor will I likely ever be so into the whole nihonto thing that I develop a vocabulary of a 1000 words to describe minute and subtle differences (real or imagined) in various aspects of the hamon. For those that are - rock right on with your bad selves.

More than controllability, I appreciate the randomness and happenstance of the hamon. If a maker were, for example, able to produce exactly the same hamon on demand in a succession of blades, that would not appeal to me very much at all.

On a using blade, I would rather have a good old satin finish because that is something I can easily touch up myself and bring back to as-new (or close) condition. Not something I can do with a blade that took an orgy of meticulous polishing to present the hamon at its highest and best. And while I may be a bit old school in this regard, I think a big blade withe a FLAWLESS high grit satin finish is a thing of beauty in its own right, and perhaps something that is today underappreciated as demonstrating the maker's level of skill. There's nowhere for flaws in grind or finish to hide in such a blade.

Roger
 
Thanks for the comments folks.

Roger... I'm completely on the fence with everything you say. In some ways I just don't have an interest in a high maintenance polish in a knife.. but on the other hand, I'm fascinated with the level of complexity that can be seen when it's done. I'm also enthralled with the descriptive terminology the Japanese use for it.... and how intimate they are with such a subtle thing. It recalls the Eskimo and his snow types. Again.. I'm not sure if I will ever actually get into that far... But as I mentioned, even a cursory look into it can open up your eyes a bit...and really get you into thinking about your heat treat and whats happening inside the blade at the quench.

As to repeatability of the hamon.. that is something that depends on what scale you look at it. It would be impossible to make a completely repeatable hamon in terms of the microstructure and interesting character (hataraki). But I think it's important to be able to repeat the over-all pattern that one is trying to achieve with the type of clay layout you use. That, to me, really speaks to your control of the heat treat process. Something I'm still trying to achieve with my forge heat treats.
 
Scott I think your work on this will pay off very well that is a very nice result for 1075 what did you quench in? I look forward to seeing this one done.
 
That was Houghton Quench K David. I've looked at enough hamons quenched in water versus fast oils.. and I'm not sold on the risk to the blade for the kind of work I do. And Houghton is faster even than Parks from what I understand. Also.... that 1075 is Aldo's low manganese stuff.... which is known for having real active hamons.
 
I both like and appreciate the effort that goes into a well executed hamon and feel it can add significantly
to a custom knife.

However I feel hamons and especially laminated blades are approaching the point of being "overdone".

I feel there is such a thing as getting "too much" of a "good thing". ;)
 
I like them. But, I don't generally do the really polished ones. It is one of the things that you just don't find on factory knives.
 
I've gotten very particular about hamons. Like Roger, I don't know the terminology to their different aspects. What I can say is that I like the more Japanese type of hamons, where the activity is in the transition and you get wispy fire or cloud like hamons. What Nick Wheeler and Stuart Branson achieve for example. What I dislike are what many makers are calling hamons these days but are just wavy quench lines. A differential heat line that goes up and down like a sine wave or like someone drawing a wavy line with much undulation with high crests and low troughs on the blade is a turnoff to me now. It doesn't look natural. I used to buy knives with that sort of hamon, but that was a few years ago when I just started to get enamored with them. Nowadays if I can't have a Japanese like hamon, I would prefer a smooth quench line following the shape of the blade edge or just no quench line, rather than something that looks like the knifemaker is purposefully trying to get a wild and crazy shape.
 
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Thanks for the comments on this folks. As I was hoping.. it's educational.

Grapevine.... nice point of view. While I really like the wild and crazy 'hitatsura' hamon you can get on very shallow hardening steel by the use of heat control and very little clay... your comments go along with the idea that the hamon can be an indicator of a maker with good, controlled heat treat skills.
 
When I first got interested in temper lines it was on Nihonto

The only new cutlery that displayed a temper line where very expensive and rare

Today they are everywhere and I still enjoy them when done correctly

For me they can be as simple as to show the blade was differentially heat treated or an art form all on it's own.
 
I look at a hamon as another artistic pallet for the knife maker. You can get the differential hardening in the blade through other means, but none are as potentially pleasing to the eye as a well executed hamon.
 
While I think a hamon can be a thing of beauty, it is merely a visible manifestation of the internal state of the steel. Your testing by other means made you more aware of that fact Scott. I think it's another example of the axiom "form follows funtion". A hamon that has no flow or rhyme about it, makes for a blade that is more likely to break in a difficult situaution, while the flowing hamon with consistent pattern will contribute to the blade's toughness. The true characteristics are inside the blade while the hamon is visible evidence of that.
 
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