You have done a lot more playing around with this than I ever did Thomas. All I ever did was to make what I wanted, or needed, to make, and if the result was satisfactory, which it nearly always was, I let it go at that.
My comments relate to a finished blade, which of course is always etched & stained, and because a blade will always have angled faces, the nickel itself will always appear to be wider than it really is. If you just forge a flat faced billet, the nickel will look very thin.
My working method was very simple, I did not use stacks of material, usually just two pieces of +/- 1cm - 2cm thick ferric material with a paper thin piece of nickel between. Occasionally I used two or more of these already welded little billets to make a small stack, but working alone without a striker and without a power hammer, it was faster and easier to use small billets.
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