I do mostly take a little notch out of the heel there to stop it catching on flesh, but not usually so much as that. The 304l/01 combination is very particular the way it needs to be forged and prepared for heat treatment, or the cladding will rip the core in two, so that was another fail safe as I have seen a split core start from that vulnerable point on failed pieces.
After it has been tempered its quite stable. But I have several dramatically failed pieces to show what can go wrong at almost every stageAnother reason why I am particularly pleased with these, because I got it to work eventually.....
![]()