Frustration heat treating and tempering 1084...help!

[SkagSig40]

I'm on my 5th blade(stock removal not forged). 1084 from Aldo. The first 3 I did the quench with my forge eyeballing the color and using a magnet. I bought a little Paragon SC2 kiln. I normalized at 1600F using the kiln. I let the kiln sit at 1600 for 45 minutes before putting the knife blade in. Let the knife sit for 10 minutes to make sure it hit 1600, then I cooled to room temp. Programmed the kiln to 1500F and let the knife sit in it for 10 minutes. When I opened the door it was a nice orange color. I grabbed the blade and quenched in 125F canola oil with in 3 seconds of pulling out of the kiln. Let the knife in the oil for 45 seconds till it cooled down.
File still bites! I think I have some decarb? I filed it off and it seems harder but dome of my files still grab and some skate so I'm not sure what I got. I'm tempering now at 420F for 2 hours in the kiln.

I had to do this process 2 times because I had my kiln ramped to full and it over shot to 550F during the 1st tempering process so I had to start the whole process over. Here is a picture of my blade after tempering when it accidentally hit 550F. Do these colors(copper, blue) tell you anything? I thought it was too soft because taping it on my anvil was flatting out the edges as seen in the below picture. Even after this 2nd quench my anvil leave marks on the blade. The blade should be much harder the my Emerson anvil at 50rc.

I'm hoping I hit the 64rc on this last quench and now I'm tempering down to 59-60rc. My Paragon is new so the temps on the read out should be spot on. Also after this 2nd quench, I'm getting large thin pieces of carbon sliding off the blade as seen in the picture. Is this normal and can it hurt the heat treat? What do you experts think? Here are some pictures.


Here is the colors after tempering twice at 420F for 2 hours:


Here is the dings caused by tapping the hard blade on the spines edge against the anvil edge. I dont think this should ding the blade as it should be much harder then the anvil.
You can see the shiny spot on the spine:


And here are the black flakes that slid off the side of the blade after the quench:

 

[Justin Schmidt]

Decarb man. Take it to the grinder with 200 grit if your not sure. It shouldn't get above tempering range so no worries about over heating.

 

[Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith]

Yes, take off a few thousandths and it will be hard steel.

People often say that a file still bites a bit when testing. That isn't an indicator of being too soft, as many files are higher than Rc64-65, which is the as-quenched hardness on many steels. What I listen to is the sound of the file being run down the edge. The higher the pitch, the harder the steel. If it makes a dull grinding sound ... it is soft.