Believe it or not, it's a failure.
I discovered this really tee-tiny itty bitty faint black line along the spine and down the clip after I etched it and looked closer.
I'll try to explain what happened:
Carbon migration happens with the right mixture of time and temperature.
The outer San Mai layer, which is a type of low nickel alloy, sucked the carbon out of the inner core of 1095.
That's all good.
That's what I wanted it to do to show those Damascus-y lines in the etch.
But what I didn't prepare for was up on the spine.
I did a full blade austenize and quench.
The 1095 is exposed at the top and hardened.
That was bad.
Because, the San Mai laminate sucked carbon out of the outer portion of the inner 1095 core, making it a little carbon deficient as compared to the inner portion of the 1095 core - right?
So, when it hardened, the inner and outer portions of the 1095 core hardened at different rates and literally ripped the core down the middle on the spine.
Can't do that anymore.
So, I need to either clay up the spine, or not quench it.
Back to the drawing board.
Next one is already forged for tomorrow.