What went wrong with my hamon?

CWendling

CWendling

Joined
Sep 10, 2005
Messages
518
W2, ground to 220grit, cleaned. Thin wash of satanite, then coated to 1/16-1/8 thick a wavy pattern. Allowed to dry. 10 min soak at 1465, full quench in P50. This is sanded to 1200 grit and about 5, 5min etches in 4:1 FeCl. You can actually see the waves where the clay was, but obviously it didnt follow the clay (which popped off in quench) and clearly they hardened different than each other based on the etching
 

Attachments

  • received_207011343543744.jpeg
    received_207011343543744.jpeg
    131.3 KB · Views: 106
  • received_1150076951806403.jpeg
    received_1150076951806403.jpeg
    159.8 KB · Views: 99
Doesn’t look like anything went “wrong” with your hamon, it just didn’t follow you clay. You might find that it did follow it more than you think if you polish it out.
If you don’t like it, you can always re-do it.
 
The one on the right looks great, the one on the left, the clay may have come
off.
 
I have best luck with W2 in drum forge and it's still finnicky. Too many factors with the steel, everything matters in hamon formation.
-Trey
 
For what its worth, I wash my blades with dawn dish soap before applying clay to degrease them (furnace cement in my case). I lay down the furnace cement and put them in an oven at 200-250 degrees for 45 minutes or so and let them sit in there over night before heat treat to make sure they are dry. I am by no means an authority on hamons. Throw an @ Gmail . com on my username and ask for my hamon word document. I can shoot it your way. I thermal cycle them also. I have very good luck with the process. I pulled most of it off the forum by Google searching. The Information is from a username I wish I could credit for being so generous to share.
 
I dont believe there is any decarb as i ground it down after HT of course and it was a near mirror finish before etching. After etching, that is polished out. Too late to re-HT as they are almost a zero edge now being kitchen knives. I guess what I was wondering, was why on the one there is a straight hamon line which is clearly not where the clay was if anyone knew
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top