Visual Difference Between Water Quenched, Oil Quenched And Acid Etched Hamon On Showato Blades

[Yukihiro]

Hello,

 

My question is simple : how can I tell the difference between a water-quenched, an oil-quenched and an acid-etched hamon on a Showato blade? From what I have read here and there, most Showato blades were oil-quenched, but some of them were water-quenched or even had their hamon acid-etched - I haven't got the faintest idea what the visual differences induced by these specific processes can be and would be eager to know more.

 

Thank you in advance for your replies!

 

Didier 

[lonely panet]

oilies will have dark patches at the peaks of the hamon IMHO

 

 the example  here is a showato by nagamura kiyonobu

[lonely panet]

this is a water quenched showato, notice the lifeless hamon 

[Yukihiro]

Thank you, Hamfish.

 

So I suppose this is an oil-quenched hamon too :

 

[PNSSHOGUN]

Textbook oil quenched hamon, Didier

 

A real Hamon will be bright and glow in the right light, Hamish has given a very good example of what oil quenched Hamons look like. Oil quenching was used for a few reasons (all of which are still relevant and used today), chiefly oil quenching is not as stressful on the steel compared to water and results in less chance of cracks & other faults in a blade. Functionally as weapons they are perfectly good, if not stronger overall, compared to traditionally made swords. 

[Yukihiro]

Yes, I understand the point. The reason I asked was that I kept reading about water quenched vs oil quenched blades and couldn't even tell the difference other than water quenching was THE traditional method that (among other things) set a gendaito from a showato apart.

[Yukihiro]

To your knowledge, does oil quenching tell us anything about the way the blade was produced? By that, I mean hand-forged or industrially made?

[Yukihiro]

This one glows (= water-quenched?) :

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TeyifHOj_3o

 

Whereas the other one doesn't (= oil-quenched?)  :

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ln0YtEpXjAA

[PNSSHOGUN]

The overwhelming majority will be homogeneous steel that is shaped or forged out to a sword form and then quenched.

[ggil]

As far as I know, nie (large visible hard steel structures in and near the Hamon) are not found on oil quenched, one sure fire way you know you have water quenched. Someone needs to invent a non destructive way to test hardness, to really get an understanding of the hardness near the surface. This way you could measure the differential hardness across the ji. That would tell us more than our eyes. to me, it isn’t just how hard the edge is but how soft the balance is that makes nihonto special. It has some give to it not just a brittle thing. Personally I don’t consider showato as functional as nihonto generally speaking, because of many reasons. I doubt the level of hardness differentiation, and the ha hardness itself. The farther back one goes the more likely I think a nihonto destroys a showato in functionality, generally. Plus, as far as speed goes, many Koto works have been polished downtown thepoint that they are very fast and light. Maybe against armor a bad thing, but in plain clothes I’d rather have a katana weighing 700g over a 900g blade. Plus as much of the damage has been near the tip (ideal strike area), the koto works tend to have a greater taper and hence feel even lighter and take less energy to swing (they are faster). I guess functionality is a matter of the situation at hand, really, and a showato may be more functional than nihonto in the right circumstances. Sorry I can help much. Maybe there are some microscope pictures of water quenched nioi VS oil quenched, and maybe there is a difference. I like Hamfish’s point about dark spots, I have seen that in showato also.

[lonely panet]

IMHO, your youtube clips are back to front with there labals.

 

1, oilie

 

2, ??? poor lighting maybe traditional or very well made showa 

[Yukihiro]

Well, the first one (by Kanemune 兼宗) has got the bright and glowing hamon in my opinion, but I don't know a thing about either nihonto or showato, so I might very well be mistaken in my assessment of a "bright" and "glowing" hamon.

[lonely panet]

the heavy nio guchi may be the result of a post war polish, but if you look closely when they turn it to refect the light, you will see hark peaks and patches a the very top of the  (sabon sugi) hamon.

 

very easy to spot, you just don't get that behaviour in water or traditional swords

[Yukihiro]

Yes, you're absolutely right. I still need to train my eyes before I can distinguish the one from the other at first glance.

[Shamsy]

Not sure if this will help, as I take it you'll be looking at unpolished blades, but it illustrates the point.

 

Water quenched blade with a lot of activity in the hamon and indeed an impressive hada. These are the things that stand out to me probably. Oilys are kind of just a white line with those black ridges mentioned and not much to see besides.

 

Since there was a discussion around which sword would be preferable in combat, I'm going to shout out to mantetsu all the way!

[Bruce Pennington]

I was hoping one of the guys that really know this stuff would post some good examples. Thanks to Hamfish and Steve for theirs.

 

I haven’t studied this area enough. I’m posting pics of my Star-stamped gendaito, and my polished Mantetsu. You can see lots of activity in the gendaito. While tha Mantetsu doesn’t have activity, it doesn’t have the dark spots of the oil quenched blade, which is why even my polisher thinks the blade was water quenched.

[vajo]

Nagamitsu

[vajo]

Your Mantetsu have all Bruce. You must look to the blade flat to the light and you will see all.

 

Here a picture of a yoshitada

 

 

Look to the right side of the picture.

[Shamsy]

I took my photos a little differently to how I've read others do it. I put down a black felt mat. I close the curtains and sit with them behind me, so only a small amount of ambient light comes through from behind. Then I use the camera flash down the length of the blade. Seems to turn out pretty well. Give that a crack, Bruce.

[Dave R]

I was hoping one of the guys that really know this stuff would post some good examples. Thanks to Hamfish and Steve for theirs.

 

I haven’t studied this area enough. I’m posting pics of my Star-stamped gendaito, and my polished Mantetsu. You can see lots of activity in the gendaito. While tha Mantetsu doesn’t have activity, it doesn’t have the dark spots of the oil quenched blade, which is why even my polisher thinks the blade was water quenched.

 

 As far as I know, Mantetsu are water quenched.The picture is a PR photo from the Mantetsu Corp. from when they promoted their new sword making facility.

[PNSSHOGUN]

Definitely water quenched, there is a bright glow to the Hamon.

[Yukihiro]

I know this is an older thread, but I have yet another question about oil-quenching techniques: were there ways for gunto-smiths to make the hamon on their oil-quenched blades look closer to a water-quenched hamon? The reason why I am asking is that the hamon on my Amahide gunto does not look strikingly oil-quenched to me, although the tell-tale darker patches do seem to appear on some of the pictures. In other words, the question I am asking is whether there were any technical possibilities for gunto-smiths to tone down the oil-quenched aspect of their blades.

 

 

[Ron M]

Amahide himself, let alone the shop he was running and his students and partners, did a lot of experimenting and making some crazy blades. I have a fully forged gunto katana but radically oil quenched with a wild result.

 Yours was probably the cooler and more tamer examples of their work with hamon and steels.

 Others in here definitely know more.

Regards