Hamons 2 (aka "The After-Hammond") Hybrid vs Traditional Polishing 

i came for the knifemaking, but i stayed for the bizarre humour

Man I'm loving the direction your vids are going! Adding more comedy but keeping a cool learning vibe. One of my favorite youtube bladesmiths!

This is by far the best video I have found on bringing out a hamon on youtube. Thanks!

This is brilliant. It's like you and This Old Tony are sharing a brain. I mean obviously neither has full control but it's beautiful none the less.

Thank you for the video. I have watched Walter for many years. Traditional Japanese togogiri top polish is the stuff of legends. I watched every second which is an absolute rarity and was slightly bummed from the last skip to fully polished. Wonderful work on both knives.

You actually did really well with the stones, one thing to keep in mind though, is when you're doing your foundation polish is to use short little circular strokes. It'll save you a huge headache in the long run. Also I noticed that the first water quenched knife was totally devoid of asha lines (lines of clay extending from the ridge to the edge of the blade)... said lines are pretty much essential to keep the edge from cracking from use... and during the quench as they relieve stress along the edge, plus they produce different patterns (activity as you called it) within the Hamon Other than that You did really good work on both, Keep 'em coming ^.^

LOL this is one the most informative and fun videos i have ever seen in my life ! thanks for your work and knowledge.

That black handled one looked sweet! Good job!

Aaand Walter Sorrells here with more I know more about this than pretty much anyone! Ha! Great and beautiful work man

No surprise that strange things happen in your mirror, since you're doing acid all day :P Great video, and I like the knives!

Love the comedy at the end, keeps the video refreshing with out taking away from the content.

This is unrelated, but while watching this video a bat got into my room. I was wrangling with it while you were going on about knife polishing in the background, haha! I first ran out of the room and closed the door. When I came back in to deal with it it was quietly perched on the door frame. I can only assume that the dulcet tones of your voice and calm nature of the videos lulled it into a relaxed state. Thanks for the assist.

The g10 handle knife Harmon is beautiful

Awesome video! Also uchigumori is pronounced with the ch as in chicken not with a ck sound.

Aaand the hamon rabbit hole just got deeper. Thanks for this, it was great

Brilliant video very informative buddy thanks for sharing and I'll definitely never be doing this haha 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼

7 hours of hand polishing! You are a better man than I

BTW, there is #0000 (0*4) steel wool, gunsmith books recommend it all the time for removing very light rust from guns without harming the fragile bluing.

I laughed way too hard at this. The knives turned out awesome too.

This is by far my favorite video you have done.

I made a knife for my senior independent shop class project back in HS, complete with hardening, tempering, and signing my name in the blade using a combination of nitric & sulfuric acids in the chem lab. Since the finest grit belts you could get for the sanders in my school shop was 180 grit, I polished it all by hand. Turn a movie on, then sit in the livingroom for hours with a piece of wet-dry silicon carbide sandpaper stuck to my finger, rubbing it back and forth over the blade. It was interesting seeing you do pretty much the same thing for the traditional technique, only using stones instead of sandpaper. Feel like I spent about 3 years rubbing sandpaper against that blade in that single semester, but it came out great. =)

I love lemon juice for sure, but lime juice with a bit of pulp works really nicely for just showing the hamon line.

Keep in mind that dish soap is also fairly alkaline. Its addition to acid will change the pH.

I respect your willingness to work that long an new techniques. That is a lot of work. Great job, very informative.

Birmingham UK here loving the channel, learning loads, cheers fella 👍

Love the video, beside the incredible work it's also informative. Just on a side note I wouldn't add any detergent to the lemon juice, detergents are a base liquid and will neutralise the acid in the lemon.

Love these videos! I look forward to yours the most. Oh and thanks for all of the charity work you do, you’re a f***ing rockstar

Pretty stoked on getting one of these!!!

Thank you for sharing!

Very good, I really enjoyed it, Great work! Your commentary and Zaargon made me laugh!

Fantastic video. Thanks for your efforts to educate.

Man, these are some great ideas, I would love to try the aluminium oxide powder and the finger stones, but my last few builds have been all hamons..... I think I'm gonna take a break for a while... I definitely learned a lot experimenting, but I never tried any of these methods, maybe one day.... Thanks for all the tips...

Man I absolute love this video, it's definitely one of the best ones you have ever made to date. And I am a time Traveller from the future. Btw it aledgedly takes longer to learn to be a sword polisher than it takes to learn how to forge and harden them. Good job buddy

The black handled one looks real nice!

I'm sure the smaller stones are meant for the hamon only. There's a video out there by a togishi so you can see how. It's worked by thumb in short tight strokes in random linear directions and slowly works its way up the hamon.

I did not think to ask this in my earlier comments your hamon videos and I am wondering if you did you clayed the back of the spine and front of the ricasso of your blades? I am asking because I have observed a lot of clay quenches as it's my preferred method of quenching as personally i feel its the gentlest method of quenching. If you do not cover these parts of the blade your quenching you are far more likely to crack the blade. I am unsure what grit you take your blades up to before quenching but I suggest stoping at 120 as that will allow the clay to stick the blade allowing you to forgo the wire. also to prevent auto tempering you should leave the blade in your quench medium until the medium stops boiling as quench speed only affects the exposed steel and the heat will rise away from the exposed steel. I think you may want to do a 5-7 second count before switching from water to oil if you want to use walters method and form what i have seen when he does this quench I feel it is a modified interrupted quench. I would love for you to revisit this subject trying out my suggestions. I hope you keep up the great work. sorry if I come off as arrogant here however I have done enough clay quenches to go threw 3 32 ounce containers of Rutland black and so my arrogance is backed up by a lot of observations.

Ay man, thanks for the vid- nice editing skills with the mirror bit!

That was pretty cool and it looks like a lot of things that I've been trying to work through and it almost seems like different grades of sandpaper do the exact same thing

That book wasn't around in the 80s when I learned Shitage and Shiagi Togi. Lot's of time and advice, and dreams believe it or not. I dreamt out the subtleties of the Hazuya, Narutake and Nugui. Would wake up and improved by leaps and bounds as time passed. I used Asahi Synthetics, and Naturals. You know you slaughtered the pronunciations. My Uchigumori where $600 a piece those are cheap decent ones. Oh, and Tungsten Carbide Migaki Bo. We also use Chromium 2, and Chromium 3 Oxide. The Red, and Green Nugui. You have to work your Nugui, a lot with Kanahada, less with Chromium. Pretty much Retired now though.

Fantastic video man really enjoyed it!

Man, that 1st blade came out sweet. Thanks for the tips. I had never even heard of the finger stones, till about a month ago, pretty wild idea.... I usually always leave me edges thick for heat treat. I figured 1/2 the people heat treat 1st and the other half take it down to a dime, so I split the difference. I found that if you ever need to surface grind one side more, you have plenty of room to move the center. So far, I've never cracked a blade(so far, hahaha).... Take it easy....

Very fun and informative video!

but for a pie cutter, _nothing_ but key lime juice will due.

Please bring Zargon back. That end bit was hilarious lol

It’s beautiful work!!

Love your granite color.

from what I've heard the longer you leave the acid on the blade the more detail comes out, I was even told don't wipe the acid off just let it dry for awhile but I could be wrong

Great video thanks for sharing.

Your result though .... is perfect. Well ... amazing, anyway.

impressive work!

Pretty spoopy vid, breh.

Holy cow, you just saved me a bunch of time and money. I choose to go with Team Acids.

you need to try using pineapple i was experimenting and i got amazing results with carbon steels between 1075 and 1095

If you ever have to take your kitchen knives into battle, them Hamons might be a game changer!

Great job 👍

Very nice hamon still.

uchigumori OO-CHEE-GOO-MOH-REE The "g" sound in Japanese will always be a hard g. In fact, there is little to no variation in pronunciation between different words. Japanese is very consistent in its rules, unlike the mess that is English. It's like you're trying to make it harder than it is :P

nice one bud

Bro you look nothing like what you sound like. Lol loving the videos bro been here since day!

Like starting a project that your great great great grandpa will still not see the end result. Someone must have given them a cheat sheet 🤔

So. I heard if you alternate between lemon juice and vinegar it really makes it pop.

Annnnnnnd... the esoteric remains just that. The Mysteries of Japanese blade polishing handed down in secret from generation to generation of people who did only that for a living versus a curious guy from OK. I thought you did pretty damn well!!

Great video

I use Japanese Natural stones for sharpning my knives.

My last comment was not a criticism of your efforts. I realize it seems very negative. I know however a knife makers most valuable asset is time. When you see the cost of a Custom knife the makers time investment is a HUGE factor in price. By way of reference the most primitive knife I've made still took hours.

Fantastic job making what could've been really boring and technical into something I laughed out loud at. Traditions aside, would you get a similar result with some stronger acid some sort of powered polisher? You know, MORE POWER!!!

Great vid...lots of info...BUT, thank goodness for technology!

really glad I subscribed, when are you gonna do ANOTHER farriers rasp knife? Would be really cool if you would. I do a lot of frontier style knives outta farriers rasps.

OMG. The way you handled that DVD triggered the shit clean outta me. :(

From what I read and understand the finishing polish stages only really help when the blade was made from bloom steel/tamahagane. It doesn't really do much for modern steels.

Do a bedspring Damascus? Mattress springs must have some carbon content.

0:47 you corrected it!... ;)

Why bother with the water quench if it is so prone to mess up the knife?

Ahhh 1084, now there's yer problem... too many Manganese's ;) Great video!

The stone cuts the knife, but then you use the knife to cut the stone. Seems sort of poetic.

So in between etching cycles are you applying the WD-40 and metal polish or are you etching through all the cycles then applying the WD-40 and metal polish then the aluminum oxide?

Sunlight yellow overdrive?

Would it be safer to use two different carbon steels? In my limited knowledge I thought they used a high carbon steel for the edge and lower carbon steel in the spine.

Have someone tried using a sandpaper 1200 grit or 2000 grit instead of the aluminium oxide to polish after the lemon juice etch?have

What if you use the steel darkening solution like what you use to blacken steel on the soft part of the blade the better define the hamon?

One Questionen Did you first heat the lemon juice and then add the detergent or did you add the detergent and then heat it?

If you have so much difficulty with getting the water quench to not crack, do you know how they used to do it in Japan with a fairly high success rate with, debate ably, lower quality steel? Is it the lamination pattern?

Try dabbling with different dilution strengths of Potassium Dichromate and Hydrochloric acid, be careful making initial brew, 1/ dissolve Dichromate in hot water, then SLOWLY add acid, otherwise it will reboil the water and may splatter, 2/ wear the right safety gear and be careful with Dichromate,- nasty !! Make initial brew with basic equal amounts ,200 grams Potassium Dichromate, 200 ML Hot water, 200ML Hydrochloric Acid, Your finished solution will be Yellow in colour, and looks so similar to the test dip solution I have watched you use in your Vids, to bring out Demascus pattern, would love to see if this works there too ,let me know !!

Man I can’t even say this stuff. Just think what went into creating all this knowledge. How much trial and error went into perfecting this art. Maybe 6000 years?

"If you know better, I'm sorry" hah!

Small world, my friend’s family owns Maas polish

What is the liquid that you put the knife in at 4:01 and made the knife black color?

How about brine quenching? Just curious

Any clues to why the blade fractured the first quench? Thanks td

Any thoughts on Rottenstone? Too fine maybe? I know it is effective for gun stock polishing.

What type of steel wire is that? And what gauge is it?

This video should leave you with just one question: How strong ARE your lemons?

How does this compare to silicon carbide sand paper?

Zargon, consumer of condiments?

Hello, what kind of wire do I need to use for the wrapping of my blade to attempt a hamon? Please Amy info would be so appreciated!

how long this gas tank last when used like this

I need help o wise master of the blade!! I did everything you did in the video, but I can’t get the hamon to show. When I etch it in the lemon I can see the difference in soft and hard steel with the pattern I made in clay, but when I put brasso metal polish on it nothing happens. The blade goes back to white with no difference between the steels and no hamon. I spent the last two days wiping the damn thing down with lemon, grapefruit, and vinegar to no avail. Any pointers or ideas why I am failing so badly at this?

What did you end up getting out of that black handled one? Just curious what kind of cash a knife with that many hours yields.

Green Beetle How can I send you something.... I have a cool idea I think you might have fun trying out.

Can you hamon a file