There is always huge confusion here regarding "grain" as in austenite or ferrrite crystals, and "grain" as in the anisotropic effects of rolling the steel in one direction from the ingot at the mill. I really wish there could be different terms developed by industry because it gives no end of grief when explaning either. Perhaps subdivisions of phases (austenite, ferrite etc..) could be referred to as crystals and the directional properties from the mill could be called grain, but unfortunately one would have to overcome the fact that ASTM measure austenite in grain size:grumpy:
Crystalline phases will be wiped out a recreated in forging or heat treating, so they are irrelevent to your question Robert, however the directional "flow" of the steel resulting from inconsistancies being drawn out lengthwise with the steel are not changed at all by our heating cycles and even moderate forging, think of these much the same as if you were looking at a bar of damascus. You can distort them but not easily obliterate them in forging. They can be heavily rearanged by folding and welding, but just turning them 90 degrees and then forging them down will be similar to doing a "w" pattern in damascus.
What will the effects of running them 90 degrees to the length of the blade be? If they are left straight, you would see a difference in impact strength when under conditions where one could even measure the difference, but not as likely in a knife. Some get all giddy imagining it affecting the edge like pattern welding as if it will create a toothy cutter, but I think they are working very strongly off the placebo effect if they do see a big difference.
Either way, if you are going to forge it back down I don't think it would make much of a difference to the knife.
