Pattern Weld Sword (continues...)

 Thursday I ground down the welded billet to remove the lumps and gaps. 

These come from the edges of the individual rods, which have been forged down to * roughly * square from either round (spring steel edges) or octagon (central layered and twisted). Imagine what would happen if you compressed a pile of O shapes:

OOOO

You can see that this would result in a set of small v shapes between each of the rods. 

My own experience is that these can vary a lot in size, depending on the actual shape of the individual rods, success of the welding (skill of the smith?). Sometimes these gaps will collapse in and weld up correctly in later forging steps, but I have found it better just to grind down to solid metal before proceeding to actually forging the blade shape.

What might prove of interest here is the effective * loss * of material.
Starting rough forged billet (after welding) = 3.2 kg
As ground to remove gaps = 2.8 kg
Loss = .5 kg

Next : Forging the blade itself