Just to satisfy my own curiosity, I just tested a blade that was quenched in this oil. The blade was an old Nicholson file (cut me some slack folks, I don't freekin use 1095) and subjected to my normal edge test.
This is my own personal knife testing procedure. I compare a blade to other known "good" blades subjected to the same cuts, looking at the edge under bright light and magnification between cuts. It isn't very scientific, but it tells me something about the cutting performance of a knife.
Sharpen at about 13 per side - it generated an appropriate burr and become "tree topping" sharp without much trouble
Cardboard cut, it cut 16 linear feet of cardboard. The cut was constrained to just the belly of the blade. It showed more abrasive wear than my or Bob Dozier's D2 - but it out performed Chris Reeve's S30V and Spiderco's VG10, probably because they are softer (this test blade is probably in the low 60's HRC)
Leather cut, 20 inches of heavy leather, same results as card board
Hardwood whittling (Osage orange). It outperformed every knife in the comparison. This is not unexpected because it is a low alloy, low carbide steel, so I expect it to have good edge stability. Very little edge deformation (pretty much none). This tells me there probably isn't a lot of pearlite in that edge.
I also etched the blade and found no hamon activity.
These evaluations of the McMaster 11 second quench oil tells me it is probably adequate for that particular file. It is also fairly likely that the file is similar to 1095.
I will point out that not all 1095 is equal. Depending upon the particular chemistry of a batch - it is possible, within the specifications of 1095, to have a piece of steel where the nose on the TTT chart goes all the way over and touches the left side of the chart. No matter how fast you quench it you'll get some pearlite. So - YMMV. (and you see why I don't use it - I like W1 for that sort of thing)
Nathan
