First Hamon

C

Canesplitter

Member
Hi Guys!
Just wanted to share a few immages with you from my first successful attempt in making a hamon.
Steel is O2 (German No. 1.1545) I want to use this as a hunting knife!
Handle is made from Australian Jarrah! Guard is made from Bronce!
Thank you for your interest!
Comments are welcome! There`s always a lot of room for improvement!

Cheers
Canesplitter
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That is a clean knife, great job. The only comment I have is that the Hamon is very low near the cutting edge. I recently had two knives do this so I started putting the clay higher on the blade away from the cutting edge and it has improved. Just my opinion, I like the hardened steel to run to about mid way to the spine. But like I said great, great knife. I still struggle with guards but you seem to have it down.
 
A great hamon for a first. Overall knife design is nice. I agree with Chris on the hamon being a little too close to the cutting edge. I’m no metallurgist but for some reason I know in all my hamon attempts, the actual hamon line never seems to follow the clay line. I too like the sheaths mimicking of the hamon. Nice touch.
 
MikeL said:
, the actual hamon line never seems to follow the clay line. I too like the sheaths mimicking
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I have a working theory on that. The clay acts like a heat sink and draws some heat from the steel so the area right next to the actual line either loses heat faster or never gets up to temp. Does that make sense?
 
very nice hamon in the blade, and i love the "hamon" on the sheath!
 
Chris Railey said:
I have a working theory on that. The clay acts like a heat sink and draws some heat from the steel so the area right next to the actual line either loses heat faster or never gets up to temp. Does that make sense?
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Sounds like a good theory to me. ;)
This post from the OP and another post titled ‘first hamon’ are such good hamons it makes me want to not try again. Maybe I should learn a little more about metal characteristics. It may help.
Actually, the title of this post had me focus on the hamon and I at first missed the great handle shaping. Nice!
 
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That is a very nice looking knife. Impressive that you got a hamon on that complex an alloy but I agree that you should get it a little farther up the blade.

Doug
 
MikeL, don't know what steels you like to use, but I believe I read on the "NewJerseySteelBaron"'s website that they have some 1075 that is throwing nice hamon. just a quick fyi
 
Great knife! I will agree with the others, that hamon is just a little low. It's completely fine now, but after a few years of sharpening and removing some of the steel each time the hard edge will keep getting smaller and smaller. Remember that when attempting a hamon, the clay holds the heat while quenching. So in this case you probably had the clay on a little too thick and it held the heat longer pushing the hamon down towards the edge
 
Michael Minto said:
MikeL, don't know what steels you like to use, but I believe I read on the "NewJerseySteelBaron"'s website that they have some 1075 that is throwing nice hamon. just a quick fyi
Click to expand...

I just saw on Facebook yesterday that Aldo got in a huge batch of 1075 in 1/8" perfect size for most knives and will work great for hamons!
 
Thanks guys for all the good advice. Yes I would have loved to see the hamon a bit further up the blade. I was experimenting a lot with different heats, quenching oils and the like. I wrecked 4 blades beforehand. This was the first decent hamon I got out of my attempts!
 
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