[Crex]

I do have a tendency to look at the bigger blades and think of how many useful smaller blades I could have gotten out of that one chunk of steel. Matter of fact I've done that with a few machete blanks I picked up off one of the Iron in the Hat events at my hammer-ins just to demo what could be done. I got six nice bird/trout knives and one ulu out of one blank and five mid-sized kitchen knives and one kiridishi out of the second one. The steel was purported to be 1095, but it responded more like 1084 or 1070. Still, those knives are seeing useful occupations instead of being shin choppers.

Jim - Never tried "Hot" cold bluing before, thanks for the tip.