"That's a really good point. I'd say finish it up, at least grind it to the shape/bevel you want and polish it. It will be good practice.
Then order a piece of better steel. If there's a McMaster Carr, Fastenal, MSC or Grainger catalog or store handy, they can get you D2, O1 and maybe 440C, all of which have plenty of carbon and make good knife blades. Or order from USAknifemaker, TKS or other knifemaker supply houses online. "
Those are good choices James, but I'm of the thinking that newbie's like myself should stick with the high carbon, 10XX series of steel, 1084 is cheap enough, the heat treat is practically fool proof and it will make a knife that you can be proud of, even if it is ugly! Like my first, I was proud of it when I made it, not so much now, BUT it still cuts like crazy! Which is the objective here, cutting tools. With 1084, profile your blade ever how you want, or can, grind your bevels in at the very least giving some degree of angle from the spine to the edge, then heat it up red hot and check it with a magnet, once it no longer attracts the magnet, stick it back in and heat it another minute to regain the heat you lost from checking it, then full dunk it in whatever kind of quenching medium you choose( we can go into further deatil about that later), I recommend some sort of oil. If your on a budget, you can use many of the cooking oils, like Olive oil, peanut oil <you can buy that in 5 gallon buckets used to fry Turkeys>, there are several others that will do a good job, once you find that this addiction is not going away and your desire to make high quality tools, it will be time to invest in better quality stuff then. Most all of us started the same way you are, ALL of us are as passionate about it as the day we started, I can't explain it, I really didn't so much want to make knives as I HAD to make knives, hard to explain, but it's true, and I'm sure there are several that would agree, just keep on working on it.
Tell you what, if your interested, I'll send you a piece of the finest 1084fg money can buy, to give you a little better shot at making something you can be proud of, all ya got to do is let me know. I need to know if you have a way of cutting it, and about what size you need, and you would have to pay flat rate shipping, just let me know and we'll get-er-done, Thanks, Rex