>>573231I would advise against using pattern welded steel for a first knife for a couple of reasons.
Firstly it's harder to heat treat at home. The chances of you getting a knife made from 1095/15n20 fully hardened without massive grain is almost nil, stick with 1084 its fantastic stuff. If you're sending out for HT this isn't a problem of course.
Secondly your knife will look terrible. A simple blade material, profile and a plain handle will get away with a few file marks here and there and a burn where you overheated the pins grinding them down. It will look rustic, like a quality tool that sees proper use. However a knife made with more premium or fancy material like damascus, mosaic pins, stabilised burr wood etc needs to be seriously well made, perfect fit and finish or it will look like shit. The smallest imperfections will make your blade look like a wall hanger gone wrong. Nothing looks worse than $100 worth of wasted materials.
Oh and this is maybe a personal preference thing but I think stock removal damascus often looks really bad. Damascus forged to profile shape looks fine and with a mono core it looks great, but when you have a pattern that has no relation to the profile it just looks awful, pic related.