Daniel Cauble

400x + camera optical zoom. Nital 3.6% (my exact concentration), 12 second etch. Getting better!!

That would be great. As much info as I can get. I currently have the book "Optical Microscopy of Carbon Steels" by L.E. Samuels, for reference. I will also try a shorter etch this next time to see if it helps.

Thank you Jerrod. I am not classically trained in microscopy so it's a learning curve. Looking at yours and looking at mine, I would say mine looks almost over etched. Idk. My left eyepiece has a faint scale bar across the middle but I never use it to take pictures because it has a crack in it. I also remembered I have .25 micron diamond paste.

WOW! 10%?? Does this enhance grain boundaries? I cannot get them to show in this folded orishigane for me. My Nital is more like 3.5%. This time I lightly knocked off the oxides with 12k grit paper, etched for 25 seconds, knocked off oxides, reached for 25, etc for about 4 goes. Enhances the sharpness a little bit, but no hope of etching deeper into the boundaries. Sigh 400x

I just made my own Nital with 68% Nitric and Methanol. yikes! Will do.

Some micrographs of the core steel. The core steel is again W2 sandwiched between orishigane. A few show the clean weld of the two disimilar metals. I need to obtain a few more etchants to show grain boundaries.

Picral, and then another that I dont have a name for that is a mixture of ethenol, picral, nitric and HCL. The picral will help bring out cementite and leave ferrite alone. The other mixture should show grain boundaries.

Finally proper etchant this time, with other regeants on the horizon for different structures. I'm taking pics through the eye piece so they arent perfect or particularly crystal clear but you get the idea. 50, 100, 200, 400, 800, 800+optical zoom

800x.

Same blades, no change in finish. Just got an inverted metallurgical scope an testing it out. The 800x objective is being funny so not using it yet. Remember, Ferric etch. Still waiting on SEM results of this steel.

I said screw it and started polishing it for kasumi anyway (japanese natural stone polish). Long way to go :0

Nickle doesnt like leave the steel all too much in this style of melt. Are you taking this chunk to forge welding temps to work it into a welded bar?

Have been working on the ability to push carbon into high carbon steels to make them higher carbon steels using higher carbon orishigane and carbon migration principles laid out by Verhoeven. This orishigane was pulled from the furnace and knowing how well I can make ultra high carbon steel from one end of the puck to the other, used the entire mini-bloom of orishigane. Folding was conducted using my own formulation of mud and rice straw ash. From there it was folded 9 times and laid to rest until I was ready to use it. The spark yielded a rather high carbon spark. Much higher than W2, so I set out to sanmai weld W2 with orishigane at mid to high temp welding heats with soak in hopes of pushing carbon into the W2. Then drawn out into a billet to be used as core material. From there I constructed a sanmai with this material and my usual 1018 mild jacket. This time using a lower temp forgeweld to mitigate migration into the mild. Drawn out and a gyuto was made. Hardened using japanese Ht techniques and just got done machine grinding it. On to hand sanding. Unfortunately I dont have time to make this a kasumi style kitchen knife and stone polish it like I really wanted to as this is going to Bladeshow and I dontnhave time. So sandpaper, loose abrassives and etchants it is.

Btw, my original assertion was that the steel was 1.7%. Which is reaaally close to the 1.64% C it tested as. This is vindicating. Also i would love to share the results of the suspected cast pucks but will put that in hold until something is written up.

Water quenching would be ideal if I werent so scared of breaking. It offers the same challenge heat treating as it does in the form of the parent feedstock going in the crucible. My Mn defficient orishigane. I had to grind that thinner than I liked and quenched in Parks 50 and still had the auto-hamon you see in the last pics.