How come no one ever does a hamon temper on a stainless knife? Seems like it would be a great match just aesthetically since the patina would never cover the hamon. Mostly I'm just curious, but I wonder if anyone has ever tried it.
Nope you've got it. Carbon steel can take a Hamon either through heating just the edge or by quenching a portion of the blade. Alternatively you could use a torch or similar method to temper back only the spine. The beautiful Hamon we're talking about is achieved by applying clay so that when the heated blade is quenched the clay coated portion cools more slowly. However stainless steels are all air hardening from the high chromium content so clay would never be effective.chromium makes steels deep hardening and thus making hamons difficult if not impossible
*i'm sure there's more to it than just this and maybe larrin will chime in, but the gist of it is that deep hardening steels wont take a hamon easily or at all
Yeah, if he said he did it, I believe him. He's been nothing but great to deal with and comes across as an honest and driven maker.
Now, whether or not differentially heat treating any kitchen knife is beneficial is, in my opinion, up for huge debate.
With conductive heating/cooling, I guess hamon is possible albeit not practical. My newb hunts for stainless hamon would be:
Develope a stainless heat-equation for a specific blade params, write a simulation prg for conductives size/location/intensity varying temperatures & times. Most simplictic be 2 conductive plates (perhaps silver with platinum contact) soldered parrallel heel to tip seperated by a narrow insulator, torches + liquid N for thermal. Reckon lot of tries & errors before achieve a reasonable/usable diff HT hamon blade.
You can upload to your profile first. Then use it as a separate web page also.I picked up 3 new knives from Heiji today (wowowow etc. Will post some first thoughts with pictures after i have had a chance to use them more, going on vacation Wednesday for a few weeks)
Here is a (small, would post better but this forum won't allow it unless I upload to external site) picture of the edge on the Suji.
Is this semi-stainless knife heat treated in a traditional traditional way or is the hamon achieved some other way?
View attachment 8588
Edit: Reading Jons reply below I need to do some more googling
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