CMD, when you say "clean-up" do you just mean scale & pitting , or do you mean "clean-up" as in finish sanding , stones , etc., taking it to the final finish ? If that is the case, and maybe I'm in the minority here. I either use foil pouch for air quench steels or PBC for oil quench. I don't grind after heat treat. Instead I finish prior to heat treat, I find it much easier to finish steel in the annealed condition than at 59-60 HRC. A vast majority of the time my blades come out clean as a whistle with not much finish work to be done other than final sanding. I also do a stress relieving cycle prior to heat treat to reduce the possibility of any warping so that no re-grind is necessary. I do all of my thermal cycling in a foil pouch, oil & air quench to eliminate scale & pitting. For austenitizing oil quench, like I said, I use PBC. The technique's mentioned work well for me. I've found that I developed my own "system" only by asking questions like you're doing and taking bits & pieces from everyone and applying them to my set-up, tools/equipment that is available to me. Edited to add: I use PBC exactly like rhrocker uses his @ ~ 600*F through a shacker, catching the drops on a piece of cardboard
