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Everything posted by Silent Matt
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Kip, if you start your holes with a center drill, they won't walk.
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Haha, I'm waiting for the same thing to get some ITC and handle materials. I saw your guillotine, very nice!
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Hurry up Matt, I want to see how it turns out! After I line my forge with some ITC-100 I'm gonna give it a try. Are you doing it by hand or do you have a press?
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I feel your pain, I just went through this with a tanto out of 1095. It was mainly due to no normalization and being too hot. I now quench in 130* brine for four seconds and switch to 140* sunflower oil and keep my temps at or just under critical. What I and other smiths have noticed is that Japanese sword smiths keep the spine cooler than the edge during quench, it's hard to do but I think it yields a higher success rate and gives the blade a softer spine. I followed everything I was told and my last tanto survived two quenches( had to fix the hamon) and I even left the edge around .02
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Thanks for the tutorial. I'd like to see the finished product but your pics aren't showing...
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Thanks guys, this one is really teaching me some patience. Matt, the habaki took the longest. I'm thinking about making another tsuba, not real happy how this one turned out.
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I don't have any of pics of the blade work, but it was just stock removal anyway. It's 1095 that started out at 12"x 1.5"x .1875" thick. I used furnace cement for the clay quench. I made the habaki out of a plumbing fitting. I had a pretty hard time fitting it to the blade, but It was my fault in not shaping the nakago correctly. Not sure if I should file a nice finish on it or leave it. I forged the tsuba out of a stack of roughly 15 nickels. It has some delamination around the edges, but it's not falling apart yet... I ground a HSS lathe blank I had into a graver
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Good thing that first blade cracked or who knows how long it would have taken me to learn all this! Thank you.
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I've just been using my finger. What kind of compound do you recommend?
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I'm rather uneducated on polishing and bringing out the hamon, but I sanded the blade to 2000 grit paper, then soaked in hot vinegar for five minutes, followed with more 2000 grit, then rubbing compound. I did this five or six times. Please enlighten me on the best way to do this...
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Did the HT over last night and was able to get a decent sori and the hamon will at least travel under the habaki now. I left the edge very thin (around .020") and was kind of worried during quench, but it worked out fine. I held it in the water for four seconds this time. I'm having a much harder time trying to get the hamon to come out on this one...
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Miles, not sure if that would effect the hamon or not, might be worth experimenting with.
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Thanks for the encouragement Stuart, I normalized it last night and might give it a try again tonight.
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JPH, thank you for the info, I too am rather "frugal"... I'll have to look into the soda quench. Kevin, I don't have the resources as of yet to precisely control my temperatures and am finding it hard to get them right in my propane forge. I might have to build a bigger coal forge so I can control it better and get a slightly cooler spine during HT.
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I made two more blades and tried my hand at heat treating one. I left the edge about nickel thick (.050") and normalized it the night before. I used a thinner layer of furnace cement and pulled it further toward the edge this time. I also quenched in brine for three seconds and then into 130* sunflower oil till the activity stopped. No pings, but the hamon stops about halfway down the edge. I think I was a little too cautious on the temperature... I also didn't get any sori, which really takes away from it having any soul. I tried a new pattern with the clay that I'm also not happy wit
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Nice clean finish!
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I saw a video of Yoshindo Yoshihara and I'm pretty sure he kept the spine a little cooler than the edge, so that makes sense.
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Got it, thank you.
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J, do you have any specific formula you use as far as salt content?
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Thanks Kevin, I'll try your suggestions on the next two.
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On previous blades of this material I forged the shape and primary bevel, and they all got normalized. I'm pretty sure that and maybe a hair too hot were the culprits. At least I learned something and it will be that much better when I do get it right. Time to go get some steel and try again. Al, yes the fuller was milled in, I'd be crying if I spent the time on it by hand. I still need some lessons in patience and skill. Thank you all for the pointers.
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1095 is a water quench steel and I've been successful in the past with it. Maybe I went a little too hot, I'll try again with a normalized blade and less heat. Stuart, I used furnace cement instead of mixing up some clay and yes it popped off. Oh, and on the burn, I've noticed if you don't use anything cold it normalizes(haha) faster. I was so looking forward to making the mounts for it
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So this is both my first attempt at a Japanese style blade and my first knife attempt in months. It's a stock removal because I didn't want to spend hours only to have what happened happen, only had about 3-4 hours into it. Not sure what I did wrong as I've forged a few out of the same 1095 with no issues. I heated to a nice even dull orange and checked it with a magnet, then quenched in hot water(out of the tap) for about 6 seconds pulled it out and put it back in and heard the pings... Should I be quenching for a shorter amount of time or maybe with hotter water? I didn't normalize as I
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Ah, got it!