Anybody missing a hamon?

[tomsm44]

I was heat treating this little drop point last night and had a little mix up.  I almost dropped the blade while going into the quench, causing me to hesitate slightly with the blade about half in.  I checked the edge with a file after and it appeared to be hardened so I proceeded to tempering.  The surprise came this morning.  I have found that bead blasting and finishing with cold bluing gives a nice dark matte gray finish and I used this finish on this knife.  After bluing, I noticed what appears to be a hamon.  Kind of threw me since I've heard that it is difficult to get a hamon with 1084.  Granted, it isn't a very good one.  I'm not sure if it would show up if I polished it to try and get a hamon or if it is something about the cold bluing that helped to bring it out, but it was an interesting learning experience either way.

 

[halfseminole]

As I'm short at least one (if not more) hamon, if you'd like to just send that my way I think we can call it sorted.

Very interesting, and I do like that blade.

[tomsm44]

Thanks.  I like the way it looks too.  The only problem is that it is one in a set of 9 matching knives and this will be the only one with a hamon.

[halfseminole]

I would make a new one.  I know it's work, but if I had a set of knives and only one had a hamon, I'd want the rest to match.  

You don't need me telling you you do good work-the fact that you have an order for matching knives does that for you.

[tomsm44]

I haven't ruled it out.  I'm going to try a few more coats of cold blue and see if the color will even out.  It won't affect the knifw's performance, just the appearance.  If that doesn't work, I'll redo it.  I have until Christmas and I have six of them finished.  If I do that, I'll probably sand off the bluing and try to polish it and see if I can get a half way decent more traditional hamon.