Silent Matt

Kip, if you start your holes with a center drill, they won't walk.

Haha, I'm waiting for the same thing to get some ITC and handle materials. I saw your guillotine, very nice!

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?

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 .020 thick. Just made sure all the edges were uniform and rounded.

Thanks for the tutorial. I'd like to see the finished product but your pics aren't showing...

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.

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 and tried my hand at engraving, I guess I should have worn my glasses, couldn't make a straight line to save my life and ended up ruining my original plan. The piece of low carbon steel I practiced on was much easier. I've made tons of mistakes during this build, but I've learned from all of them. Now it's time to try to not screw up making a tsuka and saya.

Good thing that first blade cracked or who knows how long it would have taken me to learn all this! Thank you.

I've just been using my finger. What kind of compound do you recommend?

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...

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...

Miles, not sure if that would effect the hamon or not, might be worth experimenting with.

Thanks for the encouragement Stuart, I normalized it last night and might give it a try again tonight.

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.

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 with. So, the question is: should I run it as is, cut the nakago back to shorten it down, or normalize and re quench? Stuart, the furnace cement stayed put this time. Thought about it, going to redo the HT.

Nice clean finish!

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.

Got it, thank you.

J, do you have any specific formula you use as far as salt content?

Thanks Kevin, I'll try your suggestions on the next two.

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.

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

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 figured it wouldn't be needed with no forging, or maybe it did? It looks like it would have had a great hamon and the sori came out exactly how I wanted.... Oh, and I burned my finger!

Ah, got it!

Wow!