Quote Originally Posted by jfk742 View Post
Maybe your low rc is due to making the edge too thin before ht? ie., losing heat on the way from kiln to quenchant?
Entirely possible. I did grind it fairly thin before heat treat, definitely thinner than the usual 'thickness of a dime' recommendation. It did hit the oil quench within 5-10s of getting out of the kiln though. A good possibility is that the tempering temp was too high, I believe the small toaster oven hit as high as 450 at points, and with the ah, lack of stability in terms of the tempering temp, that could be another cause.

Is there any issue that you know of with letting a blade sit at room temp for say, 2 hours or so before tempering it? I'm thinking if I can wait for my digitally controlled kiln to cool down from the 1,500 F annealing temp, I'd have a lot more luck with getting an even tempering temp.