Dha Dha Dha

[Andrew]

Originally Posted by Federico

Andrew, I gotta admit you tempt me with hope of watering, but I tend not to etch non-Philippine weaponry. Just so little knowledge of non-Philippine stuff, dunno what would be appropriate, so Ive been playing it safe and leaving my non-PI stuff alone, conservation but no restoration. Anyways, any concensus amongst the dha crowd about the ethics of etching dha?

Fred, I think dha benefit from polishing more than etching alone. I've only seen two dha with what I consider true mechanical damascus (both with a random pattern). One is the sword I mentioned above, the other is one RSword sold to me last year, much to my delight!

The benefit of polishing is that, even if not pattern welded, most well made dha blades will demonstrate differential hardening, some with well developed equivalents of hamon and even nie, as Philip Tom just pointed out to me tonight.