Second forged blade decided to try some of Aldo's "hamon special" 1095

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Owen Vernon

Well-Known Member
Went to David Roeder's house this morning with the plan to forge some blades. So I had a number of steel bars cut to length and I picked up the 1095 and decided to try it. Granted this took me forever to forge but it shaped up pretty well. I'm needing lots of time on the hammer and anvil but I had a scatterbrained idea to make a hamon this time. I did lots of reading and settled on what sounded the easiest and from a well respected member of this forum Bubba-San. I used his equal parts activated charcoal, crushed sandstone, clay recipe and quenched in oil. So did a quick search found activated charcoal is used for auqarium filters. Off to Petco got that needed crushed sandstone Home Depot next door scored a bag of playground sand lol. They didn't have clay type oil dry so off to the AutoZone found 100% clay floor dry. Had to crush the charcoal pellets with a hammer to get it closer to dust. LOL then mixed the other 2 ingredients kinda sorta shook it about to bring the larger rocks to the surface picked out what I could and added water. Mixed it a bit and picked up a small twig from the yard and began blobbing the mixture on the blade keeping in mind the warnings about evenness from side to side and lengthwise and let it dry then put it in the fire. It worked..

IMG_0525.jpgIMG_2232.jpgIMG_6994.jpgIMG_3183.jpgDSCN0445.jpg

It did develop a crack about 3/8 from the tip so I reground and reprofiled but all seems well.

Also I did a differential tempering with a torch but have been told that it is counter productive and should have used an oven set somewhere between 400 - 450 deg to do the tempering. For how long and how many times if anybody knows?
 
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Good looking blade! For tempering, I'd suggest 2 hours at 400 degrees Fahrenheit, then sharpen it up and test it. My usual test is whittling dry oak heartwood, but there are a lot of different ways to go about testing, the main thing you're looking for is if the edge is brittle and wants to chip. If so, give it another temper at 420 and test again. With fully hardened 1095, you might have to go as high as 450 or even 470 for a chopper. Two tempers is enough for most carbon steels.
 
Owen,
Your Blade looks great, but in the future, if you will stick to the "1/3rd RULE", You will see that MOST of your hamons will come out around the middle of the blade...maybe! (the 1/3rd rules refers to coating the top 1/3rd of the blade in Satanite, most Makers will do their own thing from there, whether it be wavy lines, or pulling lines of clay down toward the blade edge or whatever you figure out works best for you.)
A hamon too low on the edge can be a serious problem in the knife's future performance, being the area behind the hamon is soft, once it has been sharpened back into the soft area, thats when the problems will be realized!
Keep at it, Hamons can be as rewarding as they can be frustrating, but once you figure it out, it is truly am awesome feeling when you first see the next one, it's always reminded me of Christmas morning as a kid! Good Luck and
make another one!
Rex
 
Excellent info and thanks Yes it was like Christmas since it was my first attempt at it and it worked. Funny thing tried another one today no joy so far lol Beginners luck maybe.
 
Owen,
The only thing certain about getting a hamon is, that you certainly may get one and you certainly may not!

There are several factors that are in your control,
1.) Know your STEEL! Low manganese steels are the best, fact is you will not get much of any kind of activity with any steel that has more than 3%.
2.) Hamons DO NOT LIKE HIGH HEAT, that said, you may have to do some test pieces to make sure you get the steel hard enough without getting the heat too high for that particular variety of steel.
3.) After doing several hamons on a few different varieties of steel, I would happily take any hamon I can get no matter if its luck, beginners luck, going bald luck, luck of the irish <even though I'm not!>
What I am saying is that sometimes it seems no matter what or how you attempt it, it just doesn't want to work!
BUT! The more you learn, AND the more you apply what you learn and repeat that knowledge the easier it will...errr, ...seem...
For me, at this point, all of the steel I use, except for the stainless, is suitable for a hamon, and I will generally clay coat every one of the 10XX knives I make, no matter if I want a hamon or not, I still want the
differential HT that it provides, AND I always polish it out, there is no better finish on a blade that has been rubbed on for 20 -30 hours!!!!!
Rex
 
the 2 blades were from the same bar but my clay mix was different today (I tried to be more scientific) Yesterday I crushed charcoal pellets with a hammer in a plactic jug to make powder and last night I took it home and ground it up in a coffee grinder. Yesterday the sand had micro boulders in it last night I sifted it all through a window screen mixed it per directions and it wasn't the same :( dunno why lol. Also I think my heat was a bit low today. Should have soaked it a bit more. I think. But hey like ya said I'll take the one and learn from the next.

This is a pic of the first one I dipped it in etchant to make it show up better I realize it isn't in the top third but you'd have to grind off nearly 3/8" of edge to get into the softer steel.

DSCN0453.jpg
 
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