Thanks! Here’s some photos. I put 1440 x 1080 embedded and then linked to full original resolution. Not sure how much this will help. That “bald spot” I mentioned appears to be a flaw in the steel folding, whereby there are no Damascus lines to come through. My thought was that it might be interesting to see if the Damascus lines could be revealed on the back end of the knife, but my gut feeling is that it may be too much trouble than it is worth.
^ NOTE — my embedded annotation is no longer valid, as it was later determined that this is not an applique after all. What appears to account for the abrupt end to the pattern is a lump of unfolded steel in the mix.
What’s interesting is that in one of the photos, with the lighting angle, you can see the unintentional “groove” in the surface, revealing that folded steel was indeed used for the composition.
I honed the knife with a good quality honing steel. It brought the edge to true fairly well, but it’s clear the edge angle is rather steep… which means it’s not all that feasible to get a very sharp edge. I’d need to grind it down. I’ve never actually done that in a “good way,” as in my naive days before I knew about honing, I’d use those sharpeners that would mercilessly strip off material. As I understand it now, there are times when it is necessary like removing deep nicks and pitting from the edge first and then follow up with honing. I’m aware that to do it right you need a number of different grades of sharpening stones. I plan to learn the technique eventually, as I have a couple of old candidate knives that are damaged.
Anyway, this cheap Damascus knife cuts OK. I was able to slice a tomato with it and didn’t squish the fruit. It’s a rather heavy knife (which I expect reveals the low cost steel) and perhaps that weight helps with the cutting. It’s only a little larger than my Calphalon Santoku, which is unquestionably a superior knife (it’s easy to paper slice). When looking at the blade edge with a magnifier, it’s so striking to see the edge angle differences. So I really won’t be using this cheap knife for much cutlery work. Only a conversation piece, really.