This is a utility knife I made a couple months ago. The blade is 1084 and it's my first attempt to use Japanese style heat treating. The Japanese put a coating of clay on the back of the blade so that the steel on the back remains soft while the edge hardens. The transition between the two kinds of steel is visible on the blade and is called a hamon. You can barely make it out in the picture - it's nothing noteworthy on this blade.
The handle is tiger stripe maple and the guard is brass. What did come out nicely on this knife is the filework pattern on the spine of the blade. The pattern came to me after looking at some Escher prints. The picture also shows some of the workmanship flaws I'm going to have to correct before I submit my knives to the American Bladesmith Society for the journeyman test. If you look at the corner where the wood, the blade, and the guard meet you'll see that the wood doesn't go completely into the corner. The gap has epoxy in it. That gap is a no-no. 
What came out very well is the way the brass guard meets the blade. There is zero gap. That is what I need to have on all my seams/junctions before I test.
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