>>1552955It's a concern, but you can take steps to protect it. I clamped brass stock to either side of the blade to act as heat sink, preheated the blade and tang to a blue temper, did the weld, and closed the knife and heat sinks in firebrick so they would take a long time to cool. The blade was over 400 degrees still 2 hours later. This was in 2006, the knife has been used to split the pelvis on 8 deer since the repair without a rolled edge or chip, it's still hard enough that a file will skate on it, but not so hard that you can't easily sharpen it with a pocket stone.
>>1552956Is it as good as new? No way to know without destructive testing. Is it still a good, useable knife? Yes.
