There are a few factors that determine if and how much a pattern will change when ground or machined.
First is how aggressive your angles and cuts are. For example the bevel on a kitchen knife is much less than the angle of the bevel on a hunting knife. This means that the pattern will change a lot less on the kitchen knife.
Second factor is the pattern. Some of the patterns we make won’t change at all, regardless of how deep you cut, where others will change quite a bit. When we make damascus we follow a “recipe” that we created that lines out how the different alloys need to be stacked inside the canister to create a certain pattern. The more complex the arrangement is, the more it will change. The important thing to remember is that the change is smooth. It’s all one piece of steel so even though it may change, the transition is clean and flows smoothly together.
If you have a specific question you can email us, we’re happy to work things out with you.
To see more examples of our patterns and what they look like when ground or machined Click Here.