"4 Ghost" Katana
Oct 25, 2017 3:52:16 GMT
Post by Bookie on Oct 25, 2017 3:52:16 GMT
I bought a daisho from the Ronin Katana scratch & dent sale last year, but just got around to really examining them closely just recently. (And I did get my monies worth!) While examining the katana blade I noticed what appeared to be some kind of strange circular buffing wheel marks, one at each end of the blade, more or less, and also on both sides of the blade. Each going opposite directions from the other on the same side of the blade. The marks did not exactly align from one side or the other and weren't exactly the same shape. They had a bad habit of completely disappearing on me all the time. Then, remembering the RK "ghost hamon" threads from a while back, I made an inquiry and was told the marks were indeed ghost hamons, something that was getting pretty rare these days.
The hamons did not connect with themselves anywhere and seemed rather odd at the time. The more I thought about them, the more I realized they seemed rather unique as not everyone has 4 little ghosts hanging out on their blade. Caring less that the hamons might be "fatal" or heat treating had ran amok, and with Halloween almost upon us, Slav's acid etching tutorial was located (Thanks! Slav.) and went to work. Three coats of lime juice did the trick to my satisfaction and the hamons stood up and made you take notice of them. The lime juice was from one of those little green plastic lime shaped bottles. During the process, I did not have access to the lead removing clean up cloths mentioned in the tutorial, so I took a t-shirt and Hoppes No. 9 to make my own. Worked like a charm. For the final clean up go around, Mothers Mag Polish was used very lightly which spiffed the blade back into respectability, at least in my opinion. Admittedly, Slav's easy tutorial made this a fun project and only took an hour to accomplish.
A friend in Japan is sending Kanji characters that interpret to "4 ghosts katana" and I'll etch that into the left side of the blade. No, the ghost hamons are not pretty, but they are pretty unique, and they're all mine. Their disappearing act has come to a halt and this is how they look like now.
The hamons did not connect with themselves anywhere and seemed rather odd at the time. The more I thought about them, the more I realized they seemed rather unique as not everyone has 4 little ghosts hanging out on their blade. Caring less that the hamons might be "fatal" or heat treating had ran amok, and with Halloween almost upon us, Slav's acid etching tutorial was located (Thanks! Slav.) and went to work. Three coats of lime juice did the trick to my satisfaction and the hamons stood up and made you take notice of them. The lime juice was from one of those little green plastic lime shaped bottles. During the process, I did not have access to the lead removing clean up cloths mentioned in the tutorial, so I took a t-shirt and Hoppes No. 9 to make my own. Worked like a charm. For the final clean up go around, Mothers Mag Polish was used very lightly which spiffed the blade back into respectability, at least in my opinion. Admittedly, Slav's easy tutorial made this a fun project and only took an hour to accomplish.
A friend in Japan is sending Kanji characters that interpret to "4 ghosts katana" and I'll etch that into the left side of the blade. No, the ghost hamons are not pretty, but they are pretty unique, and they're all mine. Their disappearing act has come to a halt and this is how they look like now.
