Where's your 1095 from? Are you normalizing twice, and thermal cycling before austenizing (hardening)? If not, you should. Most steel does *NOT* come from the mill/steel supplier in the best condition to harden from and get the best results. Also, from oven to oil with the 1095, especially using Canola instead of Parks 50, needs to be as fast as you can move, smoothly into the oil, and vigorously agitated (slicing motion in the "cutting direction" of a blade, or moved vertically up and down if you have a tall quench tank).
If you're dead set on using 1095, I would highly recommend investing in 5 gallons of parks #50, if for nothing else but piece of mind.
I will test your hardness, and look at your grain in person if you'll send me your samples, recommend send me one tempered at whatever your target RC temp is, and let me verify.
Just looking at the second photos, it looks larger than I'd like to see, but, breaking steel doesn't accurately reveal grain size, as you can create jaggedness from fracturing or microfracturing that looks like large grain. It doesn't look huge, but it doesn't look like glass either (which is what I want to see).
However, if you're not at least normalizing twice, you should be, and I wouldn't trust 1095 from ANYBODY that hasn't been fully thermal cycled. There is a common misconception among people that only do stock removal that as long as they don't forge, all they have to do is harden, and it'll be the best HT possible. That's placing an awful lot of faith in the mill, and if the stock is fully spheroidized, it DEFINITELY needs a full thermal cycle regime if you want optimal performance IMO, as you'll have very large pearlite grain that's optimal for machining, but shit for making knives.
I'm not a metallurgy expert by any means, or do I claim to be the most knowledgeable, but I do make damascus for a living and get a lot of feedback from customers based on how I treat their steel before they get it, and how they treat it afterwards. As long as you compensate for de-carb, doing what you can (thermal cycling) to reduce grain, can only help, and *ANY* machining, even drilling a pivot pin hole or cutting out a blank, mandates normalizing.
I'd be happy to go in-depth with my recommended HT procedure for 1095 via private channels Randy.
Also, yes, simple carbon steels will decarb VERY quickly at austenizing temps in an HT oven, much more than most people realize. Not only that, but unless you're starting with precision ground stock, there's very likely quite a lot of decarb on the outside from the mill. Most of us making small slipjoints grind our bevels completely hard, and I always do a finishing pass with the surface grinder after hardening.
If I had surface ground the piece before hand, past all decarb, it's very thin, but from the mill, or billet, or whatever, it's typically quite thick. With medium and large fixed blades, you've typically got lots of finish grinding to do to remove it, but with thin little slipjoints, you need to be careful. Obviously if you rough grind before HT you'll get past it, and only have a little after soaking at austenizing temp, but if you normalize and thermal cycle before hardening, you'll have a lot more than you'd likely expect.
Also, you're much more likely to introduce warp with any inconsistencies (even thousandths) in geometry from one side to another, so why bother rough grinding before hardening? It makes every little sense, if you're using mono steel. I often forge damascus slipjoint blades, to make the most of the material, and to manipulate the pattern, but I *NEVER* do for mono steel.
