Working Overtime - Katana

stephanfowler

stephanfowler

Joined
Nov 14, 2005
Messages
1,464
I hardened my first Katana tonight, and it came out BEAUTIFULLY

First the Heat Treat Process:

This is a long blade for me, 28" with a pretty good bit of curve too
katana_harden1.jpg


Hmmm, just a wee bit longer than my forge
katana_harden2.jpg


OK, maybe a good bit longer than my forge
katana_harden3.jpg


some really nice Action shots
katana_harden4.jpg


katana_harden5.jpg


katana_harden6.jpg


katana_harden7.jpg



Going into the Quench oil (Parks #50)
katana_harden8.jpg


katana_harden9.jpg


Check to see if it's still straight. When you first quench it, if you time it well,
you will have a few seconds to tweak little bends back into place before it REALLY hardens.
Then it's harder to get bends out of the blade.

katana_harden10.jpg
 
continued

katana_harden11.jpg


Hmmm, seems it's too long for my fancy tempering oven as well.......
katana_harden12.jpg




Then some rough polish shots to show of the Hamon a little bit:

katana_rough1.jpg


katana_rough2.jpg


katana_rough3.jpg


katana_rough4.jpg


It's been a LONG evening for me, I'm relaxin with a glass of 12 year old Mcallen scotch, I think I've earned it.
 
Awesome Stephen. Been waiting for a thread like this from you. What steel did you use? Did you forge some of the sori in? What did you wind up using to temper? Sprry for the twenty questions. It looks really good.
 
Wow, that looks like a tn of work and a ton of fun --- can't wait to see this one finished up.

THANKS for the great pics.
 
It sure was enjoyable to follow that pictorial - some great shots. Congrats on a successful quench. :) Blade looks great - keep us posted on the progress.

Roger
 
Nice work Stephan-thats going to be a great looking blade!-can't wait to see it dressed up:thumbup:
 
looking good. There is a lot of curve to that blade can't wit to see it finished..
 
love that shot of your high tech oven! Very shapely sword you have there.
 
Hey Stephan, did you notice any additional curvature in the blade plus or minus? I have been using water for the swords that I have been doing but have one now that I don't want to risk cracking. So I was wondering if the parks was a fast enough quench to induce curvature into the blade.

Bill
 
It actually straightened the blade somewhat, I had a large amount of precurve because I expected the Parks to straighten it some
 
Congratulations! If it were me using the under size forge to get a blade of this size hot enough to harden the clay would have fallen off. Good luck with finishing the rest of it!

What steel did you use?
 
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