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.
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:
The same blades, after 2 more etch and polish cycles and then polished after the last etch:
A 1075 blade done more like the previous blades first method, stopping after an etch:
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:
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.
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:
But the customer likes it, so I'm not putting any more time into it for my own satisfaction.