How to create a hamon?

[stu8]

Hi Guys.

Stu8, hear again,well the story so far.....

Made forge....
folded steel.....
Melted Forge.....
Made New forge.....
folded steel a few times.....
made blade.....
about to quench blade and then temper it......
:confused:
Now the question i have is, have any of you guys any advice on how to
put the hamon on the blade?
What sort of clay/paste could i use?
could i make the paste/clay?
if so out of what?


some help on the matter would be nice.

:thanks: stu8

[MushiSushi]

Hi Stu .. put Clay in to a search and see what comes up ... there's been plenty of talk about it in the past :)
there are many recipes, some of the secret, but most seem to do fine with some kind of fire cement
screwfix do it and so do BES among others
http://www.screwfix.com/app/sfd/cat/pro.jsp?id=54866&ts=97934

[MushiSushi]

oops here's the BES link ... look down for pyruma flue cement, it comes in a handy caulking tube for easy application
http://www.bes.ltd.uk/products/215.asp

[Kevin]

Stu.

You say that you folded steel a few times?...Is it a damascus blade?


If you want a hamon/temper line, then you could just go for a straight forward edge quench (no need to use any clay etc)...just heat to critical temperature and lower 1/3 of the blade in your quench medium , hold and rock slightly for a few seconds .The line should of course cover the entire cuttting edge..then either hold it there till the spine is cool for a very soft back or, lower completely after a few seconds.



If you want a wavy quench line then you are going to have to use clay......There are quite a few tutorials on clay quenching techniques on the internet......I have experimented with clay coatings and I went to the local DIY store and bought some fire heat resistant clay that they use in chimneys etc.......

[MushiSushi]

this will help

http://www.dfoggknives.com/sword_notes_page_2.htm#Heat%20treating%20the%20swo rds

[shing]

What sort of steel are you using stu? Some steels like O1 are deep harderning and its more difficult to get a good wavy hamon compared to shallow harderning steels.

[stu8]

Hi Guys

Cheers for that MushiSushi, i'll try that, I've ordered some fire screed to start with, one to cover the forge, and to have a go a putting in a hamon.

Coutel - thanks for the response, I'm not making damascus blades at the moment, but its something I might have a go at, somewhere down my evolutionary curve of making blades.
you've got to admit that, that piece of damascus steel on the front page
is bloody gorgeous ( "7 bars after" by Mick Maxen ).

Shing - nice to speak to you at last, you seem to be someone who knows what there talking about, when it come Japanese blades. Not that no one else on this site doesn't know what there talking about, but they seem to be your forte, and they are the sort of blades i'm trying to make .

You asked me what steel i'm using well my first blade was a large wakasashi, well more to point a small katana, due a few mistake of my own. You can guess the rest.:doh:
Anyway, first blade was made out of a piece of high chromium bar 1/2 thick,what a bitch to beat, that was due to my mate ( the dinosaur) getting me the steel.this was not folded.
The second blade is a piece of mild steel ( which i got free ) i think its EN1A or somthing of that calibre, this time I folded it 8 times, ( I know its suppose to be between 10-15 but this is just practice really). I caburizied the steel between every fold, in a load of charcoal powder.

Is there any particular steel you recomend for katana's, wakasashi's, and tanto's? what your opinion on folded steel for tanto's?


Cheers Stu8 :feedback:

[jbaron]

for a tanto i suggest 1095 pops up a good hamon it vinegar

[shing]

hi Stu,

I think you credit me with more knowledge than is the reality. I agree with jbaron about the steel, you'll should consider a low alloy steel like 1095 because it is shallow harderning, these tend to follow the clay pattern applied to the blade better. Chromium makes steel deep harderning so it is important to use a steel that does not contain chromium or at least very little.

Of course the swords made by traditional and comptemporay Japanese smiths are of tamahagane, a steel made in a traditional furnace or tatara. A good source for info on traditional Japanese swordmaking can be found in the book "the craft of the Japanese sword"

Another source of blade material is steel cable. Well known Canadian maker Wally Hayes uses cable damascus for some of his traditional Japanese blades. The cables need to be made of a high carbon steel, a simple way to test if a piece of cable is high cabon steel is to heat it to harderning temperature and quench it.

I really like traditional Japanese blades but a good one is a bit expensive. A tanto or two is on my to make list this year, not forged though, wake up the kids!

[MushiSushi]

the traditional blade is usually rated between 0.5% and 0.7% carbon. the folding process was to spread the carbon throughout the steel evenly, not necessary in today's steels and only done for aesthetics. There are many false myths about japanese blades. Most are debunked in this article
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/getarticle.pl5?eo20031229hs.htm

I assume by fire screed you mean Heat proof screed available from BES? it's what my forge is made from, although i am not sure it's consistency is good for clay hardening which is why i went for the heat sealant. the important thing is that the stuff doesn't fall off the blade until after quenching, adhesion is important as well as fine consistency, some people use a wrap of fuse wire around the blade after putting on the "clay" to hold it in place. Also important it to dry the clay out thoroughly, for fire cement this will mean leaving it wrapped in a damp cloth for a few days and then unwrapping it for one day before heat treating. It's very important that the stuff is fully dried out slowly for it's full effect to take place.

mods ... perhaps this belongs in the cutlers forge?

[stu8]

Hi Guys

I'm here again, i'll be havin a go creating a hamon on the weekend, i'll let you know how i get on, presuming ur intested.

Mushisushi: you say that the process of folding steel was purely down to evening out the carbon in the steel,well, i was under the impression that it was to create a laminated steel to give a blend of properties for each steel type within the blade . Am I wrong? can elaborate on this. :confused:

Shing you talked bout doing some work in Ti have you done any yet?
did you have any joy in getting hold of any? as a matter of interest how much did you get? and how much did it cost? and whats the sort of temp needed to do work with Ti? the reason I ask cause i might be intrested in doing some work in it. but then again i need to walk before i can run. you know what i mean.


cheers
stu8 :thanks:

[PS_Bond]

Yup, definitely interested.

The starting point - AIUI - for a Japanese blade was to smelt black iron sand to give you some blooms of steel. These would be varied in carbon content, so they'd be stacked up, welded together and drawn out. Do it enough times and you have a more-or-less homogeneous mix of the high & low carbon portions of the smelt - so you're not far off.

As for titanium - for blades? Are you looking to forge it (hence the heat question)?

[MushiSushi]

Hi Guys

I'm here again, i'll be havin a go creating a hamon on the weekend, i'll let you know how i get on, presuming ur intested.

Mushisushi: you say that the process of folding steel was purely down to evening out the carbon in the steel,well, i was under the impression that it was to create a laminated steel to give a blend of properties for each steel type within the blade . Am I wrong? can elaborate on this.

definitely interested in how you get on stu :)

Yes the folding of the steel was to create a homogenous mix of steel. It was also to work the impurities out. Modern steels are already very evenly spread and pure and are superior to the traditional japanese sword steels. I believe the folding process did add something to the steel, but not to the mythical levels that some believe .. see my post in http://www.britishblades.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2562
The japanese blade involves the folding of a single raw mix of carbon and iron. Do a search for Tamahagane to learn more about this.
The folding of different steel types is damascus or pattern welding and not the same, this is again a debated subject, but it's aesthetic for today's needs, as far as the information i have so far seen, rather than anything to do with strength. The advancement in modern steels has come a long way in the last 50 years.

There are also a number of methods in japanese blade construction that involve sandwiches of different steel types ..... some info on this can be found in the back of Hrisoulas' "The Complete Bladesmith" and another book to look out for is "The craft of The Japanese Sword". Both books are available through Amazon.com

[stu8]

I'll look out for those books,

As for Ti, yes I am, but it comes down to cost, practicality, how else would to craft Ti? and grindin / filing seem like the long way of doing things. oh! and before i forget,where to get it from. and while i'm on this subject do any of you guys know of any where i can get billets of steel in birmingham? Or where to get it delivered from? As I've only been playing around with odds and ends of steel,to get the feel of things before i start looking at buying steel. and has any one rough prices for steels/Ti to give me an idea of costs?

[PS_Bond]

JPH's Complete Bladesmith is particularly good, and eventually available from Amazon.

As for Ti - as far as I'm concerned, I don't feel any need for the stuff in blade form outside of dive knives. And the ones of those I've used were lousy edge-holders.

For O1, Cromwell Tools does short lengths of flat ground at reasonable prices (for FGS :)); I bought some O1 & D2 (1" dia round, 3m & 2.5m respectively) from, AFAIR, West Yorks Steel. I think they cost me about £60 each incl shipping, but I'd have to check.

[MushiSushi]

Carrs Tool Steels
Steelbright Works, Coneygree Road
Tipton
DY4 8XQ (Road Map)
West Midlands
Tel: 0121 522 6789
www.carrs-tool.co.uk

Haddon Special steels
The Barn
Church Street
Dronfield
S18 1QB
United Kingdom
01246291964
http://www.haddonspecialsteels.co.uk/Index.htm

George H Cook
& Co Ltd
Uniformity Steel Works
Don Road
Newhall
SHEFFIELD S9 2UD
Tel : 0114 221 2020
http://www.ghcook.com/
Supplies L6 steel which is an excellent steel for japanese style blades and is used by Howard Clark, one of the west's top japanese style blade makers, if not *The* top, to make his top of the range katanas.

[PS_Bond]

FYI - I spoke to Carrs today about L6 (DF1 in their parlance).

The thinnest they do is 160mm plate; my thoughts on 20-25mm round were met with disbelief.

G H Cook are supposed to be phoning me back...

Intoco can get the stuff in 20mm round from Germany - at a price of approx £20/m inc shipping. Or they'd be prepared to turn down 40mm to about 20mm, but there is a lot of labour in that exercise :yikes:

West Yorks had some EN45 on hand in a useful size, so I've nobbled that for future use... No L6, EN42, CS80 or CS95 (unless I wanted 2mm thick CS80).

(oops 45, 42 - well, they're close)

[Dave Budd]

I've been looking for some EN45 to make my throwers out of.

As luck would have, I met a tool maker who put me onto these guys:

Grahem Oxely (sp?) 0114 2757326

Unfortunately they are closed this week so I don't know what they stock in terms of size or steel types. worth persuing I think

[MushiSushi]

Diameter 102 - 522 mm

Flats and Squares manufactured to order
..... from GHCook's website for L6

[PS_Bond]

Amongst other things, I've been told there is no demand for thin section L6.

Bandsaw blades sez I.

Ah, sez they.

[Colin KC]

Amongst other things, I've been told there is no demand for thin section L6.

Bandsaw blades sez I.

Ah, sez they.

And?

[PS_Bond]

And nothing. About the best I've found is some 40mm round, but I think that will have wait until the rolling mill is completed.

[Bazza]

Stu,
two other books worth checking are "Tanto" by Russell Maynard, see chapter 2 and "The Samurai Sword" by John M Yumoto, chapter 5,
Bazza

[RHGraham]

Hope you guys don't mind if I throw a few bits in...

First, on L6..
It's an awesome steel, one of my favorites, BUT, really, not such a good steel to start out learning about Japanese style blades with, if the differential hardening/hamon gig is what you are aiming for.
L-6 cannnot really be hardenend using clay or most conventional differential methods to produce hamon, although it can be made insanely strong regardless. To produce hamon on L-6 requires a very involved multi-part heat-treatment routine that requires, unfortunately, a whole big bunch of time and practice.

My opinion is that to seriously start down the road of traditional style heat-treating of blades to produce hamon, the very best way to start is to pick a simple or very low-alloy steel with a modest carbon content.
I would suggest to look specifically for a steel that has around .65 to .75% carbon, no chrome, nickle, or silicon, and as low a manganese level as can be easily had.
Although the carbon is kinda high, 1095 is a good choice generally because it tends to be a very clean and controlled melt in production.

Uddleholm makes truly awesome steel, they might be worth checking out for that kind of stuff. Thier melt of 1095 is exemplary, and I believe they make simple steels of lower carbon content as well. My friend Mike Blue makes pattern-welded steel for me from Uddleholm stock and it's wonderfully clean and forges well, and heat-treats fantastic.

Just about anything that will survive the heat of the forge and stay on the blade can work as a clay. Furnace cement is easy to get and works just fine.
I've heard tell of folks using kitty litter even.
I use dry powder refractory cement and powdered soft firebrick together, and I've also ground up vermiculite as fine as I could and used it with the refractory cement and it was fantastic.

The other important thing, I think, is to approach the whole process with focus and patience, do everything slow and controlled. Heat up the blade slow and make a point to just barely get it hot enough to turn non-magnetic and keep controll of the temperature at all times. Overheating even just a little adds a huge amount of risk of the blades cracking.
IF you water quench heat the water to around 110F which can help alot, and use a lot of water... more water seems to calm the quench somewhat, a small container of water with a big hot blade boils and roils and I think really causes extra problems. I've always used the rule of one gallon of water to every blade inch... so, if you want to quench 30 inch katana regularly, probably should make your quench somewhere around 35 or 40 gallons, something like that.
Chlorinated water not so good, better to use rainwater or find some other clean source. Brine quenches are absolutely not nessecary, or even a good idea, for clay-hardening japanese style stuff.

And, be very mindfull of temps and process before the heat-treatment as well. Keep the forging temps modest ( no more than 1550F ), lower temps are better at this point, and be very carefull to normallize the blade well.
Multiple normallizations are key to grreat hamon and fine grain as well as blade strength. And, multiple norm cycles will also help to lower the hardenability of the steel which is exactly what you want when you are doing the clay thing.

Finally, you will crack and lose some blades regardless. After 15 years plus of doing this kind of stuff, I STILL lose perhaps one-in-five or one-in-six sword blades, it's part and parcel of the process. The Japanese smiths lose blades too. All you can do is just keep right on going and don't allow it to become and issue, and this is important, because if you let yourself get upset about it, it just adds pressure and additional chances of failure with the next.
It just happens. Keep going.

Use the cracked blades as test pieces, see how much it takes to break them, bend them, chip them, flex them... see if the grain is nice and fine... make use of the heat-treating failures and turn them into a part of your learning curve. And save all the bits in a box or bucket... later on when you have enough bits you can stack it all up, fold and weld, and TA-DA!!!... artificial Japanese pattern-welded sword steel... it's been knicknamed "crapahagane" by some guys over here. :)

I like water-quenching and all the associated ******** that go with it... it brings the blade-making gig right down to it's most basic elemantal aspects... earth, air, fire, and water... it's where it all started.

good luck, have fun, don't let the cracks bug you to much, and make some majik.

[PS_Bond]

Hope you guys don't mind if I throw a few bits in...


More like anti-mind? All gratefully appreciated.

I was actually after L6 to try to stick together with O1, as I felt the nickel content would give a nice contrast.

For hamons, I suspect the EN45 will do nicely - a bit higher in silicon & manganese than 10xx, but otherwise around about 1055 or so.

[RHGraham]

L-6 and O-1 is time tested and true.

I took a look at the en45 chem, and yeah, it should work just lovely.
The little bit of silicon may actually add some "shine" to the polished blade and the hamon..

[Dave Budd]

Ok, I now that it is possible to get a hamon on O1 but what is the trick to it? I've tried a few oils ant a couple of 'clays' (though I need to experiment there a bit more), but so far not muych that's any good.

Also I'm too scared toi try water quenching the stuff!

[jbaron]

how bout http://www.hillfoot.com/tool_steel.htm they sell w1 and w2 not sure what sizes tho

[jbaron]

peter can i have the phone number for West Yorks

[David Morgan]

Jon, check out www.westyorkssteel.com for details.

[aaronblacksmith]

hey, found this chat on google, iv experimented with a few steels to make a hamon, found a good site that you can get shiro gami, or white paper steel. you gan also get ao-gami, or blue paper steel, among other steels, pattern welded etc..diff from damascus. anyway, ao-gami is un-alloyed japanese steel high in carbon, very frine grain structure and a dream to turn into martensite and leaves pearlite like a dream under your clay. the website is www.dick.biz its a german site, realy nice, they also sell a small amount of tamahagane and some silver/copper makume stock.

as for a clay mixture you can make most good quality clay work and stay on with a few simple tricks. after 90% of your grindwork is dun, your ready to make your hamon, rub your blade down with a course sandpaper/ wet n dry etc. about 300-400 grit to create a texture for the clay to bond to. as for the clay, i use terracota mixed with bamboo charcoal ash, very little water, but enough to make a slurry and talk powder, talk is made from soapstone, the french varitety, mix it all up and apply a very fine layer all over the blade first, then let it dry, then apply the wave or whatever pattern u want to the blade in a line. then spread it back to the spine, for tip to stop it warping, leach the spine 1mm of the original coat of clay exposed, as it will harden at a similar rate to the blade, helping to reduce the warp. and let it all dry completely!

i use charcoal for the heating process as it is light and doesnt rub the clay of like coke or coal can. finaly turn of your lights! do it at night or in the dark if you can, you will be able to judge the temperature much better, when the steel sparkles like its covered in glitter, is just left the red heat and is bordering on orange then its usually ready. i quench in water with shiro gami, try not to quench your tang, and if u can try not to get it hot in the first place, so the heat doesnt draw temper away from you blade.

50% of single steel japanese knives crack during the quenching process, try try again, it happens but can produce awesum results. the way to stop this is to find some wrought iron or some non hardening steel, depending if your blade is right/left or center ground edge you can fireweld that iron/steel to the side/s of the bevel, this reduces stress during the quenching process but not hardening it just holds things in place but then it basically replaces your hamon you wanted in the first place as your martensite edge is a great contrast to the iron! sorry for going on and on, i just love this stuff!

[jamiemackie]

50% is quite a high loss. I know that Japanese sword makers can lose up to 25% but the stresses are much higher with swords and they normally fully coat the spine. Are you heating the water? Maybe a light oil would be best, you can still get amazing hamons with light oil, W2 for example works great in oil, Don Fogg gets some of the best hamons ive ever seen with oil.

Why waste half of your work when you could just practice using oil until you get the results?

Jamie

Oh And welcome to the forums!

[jdm61]

IIRC, Howard Clark's L6 swords are custom "race rigs" designed for competition cutting. They are heat treated in high and low temperature salt pots and are left in the low temp salts for a LONG time to create a blade made primarily of lower bainite (?) as opposed to martensite. This apparently allows the balde to be thinnerthan normal and still very strong. From what I have read and seen, his more traditional looking clay coated swords are made from 1086M (think W2 with slightly lower carbon content) He clays them up, dries the clay in the HT oven at 600 degrees for 10 minutes to drive out the water (water is a recipe for disaster with HT salts), austenizes them in the high temp salts and then quenches in a regular quenchant, possibly polymer. There is a video from one of the TV shows, Weapons Masters I think, where he helps the host make a sword of that type. You have to put the clay on thicker with a modern monosteel balde than with a traditional tahamagane blade. Apparently the only reason you use clay on a traditional blade is to get the hamon and to make it bend in the quench because the sword has a core of softer low carbon steel, whereas with a modern blade, you have to slow down the the coiling of the back of the blade sufficiently to get the soft back. Obviously, a shallow hardening steel like W2 or one of the 10xx steels is going to work better for this.
As for W2, if you use oil, make it a VERY fast one like Parks #50 or the super fast Houghton oil.

[aaronblacksmith]

i think im a traditionalist, tho making things better is almost always a posative! i think the general rule, not applied to all steels is the quicker u can cool it down, the harder it is, like sub zero quenching stanless etc, im still experimenting but iv found a supply, tho expensive, of tamahagane, its extremely hard to get and they only have a very small quantity each year as there are only 2-3 firings a year in japan. but there is a site from germany that aquires a small bit each year. i love to fire weld and hand forge my knives when i can, its soo pleasing to not rely on a power hammer, all ya need is a gd flux and a gd hot fire, love it. im not common with oil quenching, and i like the danger of not knowing whats guna happen when i quench in water. i think that wet forging aswell helps alot! it blasts off the scale during forging unlike a butcher block brush that just does it before and after.

anyway, il try and experiment with oils for my production knives for etc and save the water for private commitions.

[Sam Salvati]

you can cut down your failure rate to about .1% if you do a snap quench with water to start then oil to finish. You still get the curvature and great activity in the hamon like with water, but safer.

[Howard Clark]

My 1086 blades are quenched in warm water. I do not oil quench anything, myself. Don't like it. :)

Talk about re-animation. :zombie1:

[MushiSushi]

that's a nice Zombie dance you have there, Howard :D

[MushiSushi]

Aaron; the sub zero quenching isn't done straight from HT, but rather as part of the tempering process, as far as I am aware

and if you think buying the tamahagane is expensive, try making your own ;)

[Raggedstaff]

you can cut down your failure rate to about .1% if you do a snap quench with water to start then oil to finish. You still get the curvature and great activity in the hamon like with water, but safer.

I used to do this a lot when through hardening, but every now and again I'd have issues with them not getting as hard as I'd like. For hamon formation I always went with pre-warmed rainwater.

If it works well for you then I suspect that is down to your level of skill, not simply the technique...