Stainless steel honyaki and a hamon

Weird question, can a stainless steel(vg-10, r2, ginsanko) etc honyaki blade have a visable hamon? I was curious and did a google search and couldn't find any.

No, it's not possible.

I can explain why if you'd like, but it'll take a while to type up (I'm accessing the site on a phone at the moment).

I'd be interested as well so will watch for your post. You may also be able to answer a similar question… am I correct that there can be differentially hardened (honyaki) non San-Mai Damascus? I'm sure I've seen at least one dammy blade (a Kramer) with it.

tjangula said:

I'd be interested as well so will watch for your post. You may also be able to answer a similar question… am I correct that there can be differentially hardened (honyaki) non San-Mai Damascus? I'm sure I've seen at least one dammy blade (a Kramer) with it.

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Yes Tanner, absolutely you've just got to be mindful for the steels being combined. A hamon tends to look strange though on anything other than high layer random pattern damascus.

The only thing that's not possible is a Bainite hamon (a la Howard Clarke) on folded steel - but you wouldn't want that on a kitchen knife anyhow.

On to the original question;

A hamon is formed through a differential heat-treatment, whereby both martenisite and pearlite are formed (other than by HC as mentioned above).

Chromium (which makes the steel stainless) also makes the steel air hardening. Coating an air hardening steel with clay will not result in a differential heat treatment (where pearlite and martenisite are formed).

Excellent explanation mas4t0. It's posts like that I love.