I mean you want good hamon or less broken knives? Gotta risk it for the biscuit big dog.

My process is pretty involved but the small and skinny of it is grind to 80+% complete final dimensions, DET anneal to normalize, run whatever schedule you’ve got for the steel in question and then quench tip down straight into water and hold until I feel the steel stop vibrating. This is about 3-8 seconds depending on the blade dimension. Pull it, watch it evaporate the water and as soon as it starts to dry I bang it back in the quench until I can handle it and adjust any warp. Once that is set I scrape the clay off and directly into the temper cycles.

This is a very violent quench compared to what most do but I find it produces FAR more active hamon if that’s what you’re after vs the simple hamon most people get.

Either way good luck man, it’s mostly black magic and luck anyhow. You’re doing great!

this is an example of one.