The Hamon Thread

Willie71

Warren J. Krywko
Joined
Feb 23, 2013
Messages
12,214
We have quite a few discussions about hamon here, so I thought it would be good to try to put it all in one place. New or master, if you want to share a technique, or as a question, feel free to do so. I'll start with my basic process, to bring out a nice hamon in a hybrid polish. Its not what you want on a $10,000 sword, but its a good starting point. There is no right/wrong here, just "This is how I do it."
 
OK, here is my starting point. W2 differentially hardened. Its sanded to 1500g. There are some scratches in this pic that I went back and fixed before etching.

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[/url]IMG_0539 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]



I start with soaking the blade in white vinegar. This doesn't look clear because I use it to remoive scale, and it looks pretty black. Neutralize with windex after etching each step.

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[/url]IMG_0550 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]

I etch until it looks like this:

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[/url]IMG_0546 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]



I next polish with 1500 Silicon Carbide powdered abrasives. You can get it on Ebay as a rock polishing compound. I bought mine about 3 years ago iirc for $15.00, and have barely dented my supply. I mix it with water to a runny paste. I use makeup removal pads from the drug store to polish. This is what it looks like after the first cycle.

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[/url]IMG_0548 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]

Closer look:

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[/url]IMG_0541 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]

Now I go back to the vinegar. Depending on the temp, the steel, and some variables I have no idea about, each vinegar etch is between 5-20 min.

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[/url]IMG_0540 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]

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[/url]IMG_0549 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]

Now back to the 1500g polish: A bit more activity than the previous step.

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[/url]IMG_0552 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]

I'm not showing the third etch. It looks like the first two. You can see some more deliniation between the upper and lower, with definition around the line itself.

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[/url]IMG_0561 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]
 
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The next step is using lemon juice to etch. I heat about 6 ounces in the microwave until it boils. I rub the lemon juice on the hardened steel, but keep the whole blade wet, as the edge between wet and dry will create a line. I use a leather dye dauber to rub the lemon juice on to the steel, or on a small blade, a q-tip. I etch until it looks like this:

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[/url]IMG_0562 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]

After neutralizing with windex:

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[/url]IMG_0563 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]

And after polish: (Seems like a step back.)

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[/url]IMG_0564 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]

Reheat the lemon juice, and etch again:

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[/url]IMG_0567 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]

And another polish: You can see I didn't quite get all the scratches out of this blade.

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[/url]IMG_0569 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]

Another lemon juice cycle, and this is where I got to:

32024854586_0dba286c45_b.jpg
[/url]IMG_0570 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]

I wanted to bring a bit more of the white out, so I did a 5 min etch in vinegar again.

32024853806_c514480e79_b.jpg
[/url]IMG_0571 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]
 
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Another lemon juice cycle:

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[/url]IMG_0573 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]

Another lemon juice cycle. Rinse, lather, repeat.

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[/url]IMG_0574 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]

One more cycle in lemon juice.

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[/url]IMG_0577 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]

A bit more polishing, and I got this:

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[/url]IMG_0578 by Wjkrywko, on Flickr[/IMG]

Overall, Im pretty happy with it. I spent the better part of an evening on it. There is pretty good definition between the different structures. The Ashi isn't as prominent as I would have liked, but this knife is a user, and is probably covered with a patina now anyway.
 
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I have been doing it a bit differently than you Warren.

1) clay coat, heat treat, and quench.

2) grind all the decarb off with my grinder, then hand sand to 800 grit.

3) etch in 8:1 water to ferric chloride, several times. I start with a couple of 30 second etches, and wipe the oxides off with a clean cotton rag, then clean with simple green. Then I do progressively shorter etches, wiping off the oxides in between each etch.

4) After I am satisfied with the depth of the etch, I neutralize with simple green, and wash with soap and water.

5) For polishing, I use Mother's aluminum mag polish on a clean soft rag. I polish until I am happy with the look of the hamon.

Doing it this way I get a darker hamon, but it still has white in it when held at the right angle.




 
I have been doing it a bit differently than you Warren.

1) clay coat, heat treat, and quench.

2) grind all the decarb off with my grinder, then hand sand to 800 grit.

3) etch in 8:1 water to ferric chloride, several times. I start with a couple of 30 second etches, and wipe the oxides off with a clean cotton rag, then clean with simple green. Then I do progressively shorter etches, wiping off the oxides in between each etch.

4) After I am satisfied with the depth of the etch, I neutralize with simple green, and wash with soap and water.

5) For polishing, I use Mother's aluminum mag polish on a clean soft rag. I polish until I am happy with the look of the hamon.

Doing it this way I get a darker hamon, but it still has white in it when held at the right angle.





I like that too. There is no right way to do this, just different preferences. :thumbup:
 
I almost always prefer a smokey/frosty hamon, with the whites and deep bluish greys that a higher grit polish using vinegar and/or lemon juice to etch brings out, over the darker and duller hamon via FC etching. I do however think the darker ones can look pretty cool on certain knives though. Just my humble opinion

It's been a while since the last time I polished a hamon, but in between my warm vinegar (cut with a small amount of dish soap) etches, I always used Flitz with some make up removal pads to clean off the oxides. Then I would wash the blade again with hot water and dish soap (dawn etc.) just to be over the top clean of all possible oils, then repeat all that number of times. I would usually save my 1500 SC powder (mixed with some ballistol) oxide removal for my last step using these small, dense foam pads (that are made to shim wobbly furniture I think) to rub it off with. Sometimes I would throw in a lemon juice etch near the end as well, possibly followed by another vinegar etch.

It's pretty much the same as the method Warren showed above. I still experiment though, and might try it without the flitz on my next one. I personally learned this "method" mostly from a couple of Nick's (Wheeler) older hamon tutorials on other forums, although the pictures don't show up on them anymore.


~Paul
My Youtube Channel
... (It's been a few years since my last upload)
 
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^^^ thanks for the reminder. The vinegar and lemon juice do have a few drops of dawn dish soap in them to act as a surfactant.
 
One thing I see from this thread already is that I have been etching way to deep.

The one I've been working on and posted about in the other thread I finally stopped on because I noticed some fine pitting on the blade.

I learn something on every one so hopefully the next one will be better.
 
I believe I'm taking this kitchen knife back to the grinder this week to wipe out the plunge line and thin the edge a bit more, so when I redo the hamon I'll try and take WIP pics of that process to post here. I've been swallowed up by this rabbit hole and find myself almost completely uninterested in finishing knives without a hamon at a personal level. I'm stockpiling W2 because it has amazing activity compared to 1075 and 1095. Though I'm a newb and have only scratched the surface, what I've found so far is basically what Warren is repeating, there's no one way, no right way, and infinite combinations of variables to get different appearances. One constant in all my attempts: I hand sand to at least 800 grit and usually 1200 before starting.

For example, with this blade, I did a 15 second etch in 6 to 1 ferric chloride, polished the bladed to a clean white again with simichrome so that only a dark hamon line remained from the etch. Then I spent 60 minutes with a wedge of lemon that I sprinkled some 1500 grit loose abrasive on rubbing both sides of the blade. As the grit accumulated into a slurry of juice, I would wipe it away with a clean paper towel (maybe 3 times in 60 minutes) so for the last 10 minutes of rubbing, there was little to no grit on my wedge. This gave me a nice combination of colors, with some whiting. It also prevented the trap I was falling into in my early attempts which was over polishing between etch and polish cycles. By combining them together I was able to watch the development occur and stop when I liked what I saw.

Gjt6sD.jpg


Another pair of blades I recently did show the difference between stopping after an etch or stopping after a polish. These were etched in 1 to 6 ferric chloride for 15 seconds, wiped and rinsed, then polished with semichrome for 3 rounds, after the 3rd round, I polished ever so lightly to remove the loose oxides but not the color in the blade:

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IJ8QVF.jpg

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The same blades, after 2 more etch and polish cycles and then polished after the last etch:

cN7ROn.jpg


A 1075 blade done more like the previous blades first method, stopping after an etch:

9lpYH1.jpg


This 1075 bowie was my first real experiment into this, and while in this pic there are scratches, I wish I had left the development of the hamon in this stage rather than how I ended up:

oJWBzN.jpg


Instead I got into what I call the over polishing trap, as I was not etching long enough in vinegar and lemon, and over polishing between. Live an learn. Many mistakes in this knife so that's the least of it's problems.

KRqgso.jpg



I'm homing in on some set procedures to develop the looks I'm shooting for achieving. They all involve Ferric Chloride at least in the initial etching. Much of my experimentation now is surrounding placement of the clay and quenching times to create hamon activity rather than the development of bringing it out. For example, this Carbon V / 1095v / 0170-6 Becker blank I'm finishing for a customer - I ruined what would have been some great hamon potential I believe by quenching for a 4 count in Parks 50 and then pulling to check for warp. I think enough heat was retained in the blade due to it's mass, that I lost some hamon, as it was clayed up significantly more than the activity shows:

FmoE62.jpg


But the customer likes it, so I'm not putting any more time into it for my own satisfaction.
 
Kuraki, that recurve with the guard looks great, very nice job! :)

Creating hamon is definitely a rabbit hole! I certainly can relate to the over polishing issue, as well as getting carried away and ruining a beautiful hamon by trying to do just one more etch cycle, and it ends up not looking right so I end up sanding it back to the base finish just to start again. I probably re-did the entire process of 5 or more etch/polish cycles at least 6 times on one knife I made that had some really neat activity, as I was still really new to the process, and I either kept over shooting it, or just plain not liking the way it turned out via different methods. Before I realized it, I had taken the edge way too thin from all the redoing of the hand sanding, so I just cut my losses and left it as a hand rubbed finish. It still turned out nice, but a part of me just can't stand it when a knife that has good activity hasn't been etched and polished to bring it out.

Also, I had forgotten about the quick FC etch for the very first cycle, it is something I've been meaning to try to incorporate in one of my knives. I'm just about ready to heat treat a hidden tang hunter out of some 1075 from Aldo so perhaps I'll post some pics of that once I get to the hamon development stage. It's been quite a while since I have done it as the last few years I have only completed a handful of knives (for various "life" reasons) so I'm pretty stoked to get back into "pursuing the elusive hamon". :cool: :thumbup:

I also have some 7/8" W2 round stock from Don Hanson's supply that I have forged down a few blades from by hand, but it's just too much work to be practical, and just a tad too noisy for my neighborhood to be going to town on those things that often. I'll be looking for somebody with a press to possibly help me squish some bars down for me to a nice forge-able size. I'm glad I was able to acquire some to play with and try to release it's hamon (and performance) potential.

This thread is motivating me and I'm sure will continue to do so. :thumbup:

~Paul

My YT Channel Lsubslimed
... (It's been a few years since my last upload)
 
first I sand mine up to 2500 grit and rub the blade. after that I etch in lemon juice (many many times) util I have achieved the desired effect. In between etches I take the oxides off with glitz and i scrub the blade with various grades of pumice. the pumice really brings out all of the details in the hamon.
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Go ahead and delete this if you don't want comments clogging up this thread, before you do though I just wanted to say thanks for all of you donating your knowledge. It's not taken for granted. At least by me it's not.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Jeffrey, what type of pumice are you using, and where do you get it? I really like your work. :thumbup:
 
Go ahead and delete this if you don't want comments clogging up this thread, before you do though I just wanted to say thanks for all of you donating your knowledge. It's not taken for granted. At least by me it's not.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Comments are welcome.
 
Thanks a lot! I use 00 and 0000 pumice that I ordered in bulk from eBay. Mix it with a little oil to help lubricate it and rub it in vigorously. I start with the 00 and as my etching progresses I move on to the finer 0000 when I am closer to finishing.
 
Thanks a lot! I use 00 and 0000 pumice that I ordered in bulk from eBay. Mix it with a little oil to help lubricate it and rub it in vigorously. I start with the 00 and as my etching progresses I move on to the finer 0000 when I am closer to finishing.

I'll be ordering some tonight. Thanks! :thumbup:
 
Jeffrey, what type of pumice are you using, and where do you get it? I really like your work. :thumbup:

Same here.

I almost ground up my grill cleaning stone one night thinking about using it.
 
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