Hamons
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Messy Jesse
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Hamons are pretty badass... hard to deny that.
sachem allison
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Remember most of these guys came from a long line of sword makers, when the Samurai were banned there were thousands of unemployed sword makers and nothing for them to do with there skills. Kitchen knives were made by the village blacksmith and were rudimentary at best. Making farming implements and kitchen knives was looked at as beneath them, consequently they began to starve. Someone swallowed his pride and set up shop and started making knives using the techniques he used to make swords, because that is the only way he knew how to do it. He made better kitchen knives then anyone else and people started to come from all over to get the knives with the Hamon, because that was a sign of quality, That's how you knew you got the real deal and the knife was made properly. I mean didn't this guy make swords for the Shogun or something, he must make the best knives. I think it probably started like that and then stayed on as a traditional sign of quality more than anything else. It is done that way, because it has been done that way for 17 generations or more. Not so much a trick, but marketing, it serves a real purpose.
sachem allison
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yep
One could say the same about making any knife without the use of robots in a factory. Or steel that can rust or discolor. Or sharpening by hand on natural stones. Or using wood to make handles or cutting boards in the age of anti-microbial super plastics. Most of what we discuss on this forum might seem archaic by modern standards.
I always thought the idea was that you can get a harder usable edge if you have a soft spine to absorb some of the stress of use? So perhaps you could have a 65 HRC edge rather than a 63 HRC blade without the differential temper.
I can't think of any action in the kitchen where you would need ductility in the spine of the knife. A sword, yes, a kitchen knife, no. Well except for maybe opening cans of olive oil. My Chef uses the back of a knife for that. 
-AJ
-AJ
SpikeC
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The deep cuts seem to make the blades flex from some of the vids that I have seen. A flexible back coupled with a razor like edge would seem to be advantageous. The place where differential hardening would be helpful is when a goodly amount of force needs to be applied.
