Mike,
Bro' your Hamons are killing me!!! It looks pretty obvious that your lines are following the clay, so what gives!?!?!? Mine never follow the clay, the last one I did was on W-2
(my 1st using W-2), I did my usual top 1/3 of the blade, and then I did what I call the pinch method, to drag the lines down a little on each side evenly, the hamon came out at the bottom of the blade on top of the edge! Actually it had 2 hamons, the second one closer towards the middle was where I had put my clay! Which was the better looking of the 2, the low one gave me doubts about edge hardness so I tested it on some 2x4's, some seasoned oak and I have a log of Moc Orange (Osage Orange) that I gave a couple of whacks at, no damage, I didn't put a fine edge on it, I was mainly wanting to see if it was hard, and it passed all of my tests! After reading several posts on Don Fogg's board, I read where Don Hanson would re-HT his blades whenever he didn't like the hamon, so I re Ht'd it last night we'll see how she turns out.
If you have any tips for W-2, 1084 and 1095, that will help me get better hamons, I'd LOVE to here them!
Your making some exquisite blades, your take on the boring old Slippie is freakin AWESOME!!! And definitley NOT BORING!!!!
Thanks Bud, Rex