Tips for hamon?

I see a nice potential in your (IMHO) REAL hamon, regardless the steel you used is not the fancier to develope ghostly features.
You should:
-Get rid of all the decarburation you might not see very clearly, but trust me it's deeper than we think.
-Keep it cool as you grind/sand...use coolant in all the operations, it will help also not "smearing" the surface.
-If you want to speed up things use waterstones, anyway don't leave any scratch from the previous grit as you progress.
-If you want to bring out clouds (you have a little, but still there is something), don't make the edge white (hadori), at least not yet.
-don't use the buffer
-listen to Stacy :)
 
stezann said:
I see a nice potential in your (IMHO) REAL hamon, regardless the steel you used is not the fancier to develope ghostly features.
You should:
-Get rid of all the decarburation you might not see very clearly, but trust me it's deeper than we think.
-Keep it cool as you grind/sand...use coolant in all the operations, it will help also not "smearing" the surface.
-If you want to speed up things use waterstones, anyway don't leave any scratch from the previous grit as you progress.
-If you want to bring out clouds (you have a little, but still there is something), don't make the edge white (hadori), at least not yet.
-don't use the buffer
-listen to Stacy :)
Click to expand...
Thanks, very helpful. I think I just need to bite the bullet and do it again. I was hesitant as I don't get very much time in the shop with school going.
When you say don't make the edge white, how do I avoid that? I was etching and polishing and it came out like that.
 
It is just my impression, looking at the picture, so i may be wrong.
It looks like your loose abrasive is too coarse or like as you did use it dry, but with fine polishing compound you should get a clean mirror finish on the hardened edge.
On the contrary, with coarser abrasive you do the HADORI polishing, that's like scuffing the mirror surface to refract light and getting a "white" edge...a matte finish that will hide most of the activity, but enhances the dramatic contrast between ji and ha even from distance view.
Have a look at this, it explains the hadori look
http://www.ksky.ne.jp./~sumie99/togi,process.html
 
Is 1500 grit too coarse if used with enough water? I think the trouble I was having is the cotton would soak up all the water and leave the powder on the face of the cotton to clump up. I don't mind the hadori but I would like to get as much activity as possible.

I started hand sanding again after grinding a bit further to make sure no more decarb was on the blade. This blade is the first time I have hand sanded so I didn't sand diagonally and then opposite to be sure every scratch from the previous grit were gone. I then watched Nick Wheelers video, so it is looking much better this time around.

Lol, using the foot clamp like in the link looks a bit uncomfortable.
 
The barefoot boy said:
I am still interested in an answer for my question in post #8. Any thoughts?
Click to expand...
and @kuraki , from Yoshindo, Kapp The Craft of the Japanese Sword
I'll paraphrase and quote -
swords require ductility and hardness, conflicting qualities of steel that are brought together in a single blade.
Soft low carbon steel and high carbon steel brought together and then only harden the edge by heat treating it.

"...the decorative pattern of the hardened edge, called the hamon , serves only an aesthetic purpose."
"Yet it demonstrates the smith has indeed hardened the steel,..."

"The most obvious aesthetic element of the sword is the hamon, the pattern of the hardened edge."
"The pattern of the hardened edge more or less follows the pattern of the clay, since the clay affects the rate of cooling..."

"It is produced by covering the blade in an insulating clay, heating to a high temperature, and then quenching it suddenly in water."

So then smiths learned to adjust the shape of the hamon to lessen the possibility of a chip in the hard blade edge from spreading laterally. Some hamon have projection pattens for this concern. The projections are called ashi.

"Sword connoisseurship in Japan dictates that the blade display a recognizable pattern where the crystalline structure of the edge off the steel changes from hard martensite to soft pearlite."

The transitional zone mentioned is called the habuchi. The habuchi can be narrow or broad depending on several factors. "The zone...shows up on the side of the blade as a visible white line called the habuchi." "The visible pattern formed by the white line is the hamon,...."

now I'm even more confused :)
btw I've never tried for a hamon and don't really have any interest in it (right now)
but I would agree with John that your blade is differentially hardened

regards
 
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