Alan, thank you for your kind initial reply to my query. You say the core is clearly visible. That, of course, is when you know what you are looking at, and you know what to look for. I am struggling to see the core, and the reason is that I don't know what to look for.
What is a core? In my limited knowledge, a core is a hard steel sheet inserted between the laminated pieces at a certain stage of the forging process. I understand by that, that the core metal is virtually covered (hidden from sight) by the pamor. Inspecting post #3, in which Bejo gave us good pics, I see with my untrained eye a refurbished blade (appearing so new as to have been made yesterday) with a laminated pattern that looks like islands of silver-colored metal lying in a sea of black metal. Of course, we have here an iron-pamor combination. But what does the pamor consist of? It would be "dark" iron and either nickel or white (phosphorus-rich) iron. It gives a sharp contrast. But in Bejo's blade I see ONLY two colors: very light and very dark. Where does the core steel lie? And what is the color of the core steel? Surely it should run all along the edge.
Alan, you say the core is the narrow black border between the blade edge and the start of the pamor. Well, then ALL the very dark metal I see = core material! Can that be? I thought the steel core was nearly fully imbedded between the pamor layers, and that only a very narrow strip can be seen at the very edge. This I fail to see in Bejo's pics. So it is clear from the above I am as confused as ever!
I'm making many statements in the above as if they are facts. However, there is a purpose to that. If I do not report what I think I see, no-one can help me see where my reasoning is faulty. Please could someone put me on the right track? Thank you!
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