[Don Halter]

Here's one I'm finishing up. Originally it was several hundred layers and a bit longer. One stray hammer blow with a tired arm and.........
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. I think this makes blade #8 laying around waiting for a handle. I really need to spend a month doing just handles!