I had to grind off an extra 1/8" and probably took off 200+ layers!
On the good side, it turned out quite nice. It's 1050/1095 on the skin layers and was done san mai style with 1084 core steel. Click on the pic for a bigger view. It still has a bit more polish work to go. The hamon is very subtle. In the light, you can see faint patterns. It was quenched in light oil instead of water so I wasn't expecting too much of one anyways. The blade edge is certainly harde than heck! I tried to file in the notches at the front of the tang and couldn't file the steel on the blade edge!
Between this and a couple 1500+ layer projects, my arm is about to fall off! I still do my welding/drawing to old fasioned way.
