What happens when you water quench oil hardening steels

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Londinium Armoury

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CS95 water quenched chefs knife https://imgur.com/a/84ub37P

So I've been water quenching this CS95 steel, along with some other steels that are not supposed to be water quenched. What exactly is happening to these types of steels when I do this?
They are hardening fine and not chipping or rolling even when taken very thin behind the edge. They flex just fine when through tempered as well and seem perfectly fine after testing them for general use.
I've been told it's bad to water quench these type of steels but I'm not noticing them having any ill effects or drawbacks. Is there going to be grain growth or brittle spots? Bad inclusions or hidden deformations that I can't notice? They seem fine to me I've been heat treating them just like I do 1095 when I water quench.
Anybody else ever water quenched these type of steels before? I've water quenched O1 as well and it turned out fine.
 
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It can create high internal stress. This may cause total failure - The Dreaded PING!, or microcracks that may come back to cause problems later on. If you are testing them and they are good, you are probably fine. In some parts of the world all steels are water quenched out of necessity and tradition. They also get a slightly hgigher hardness.
It works better with a kitchen blade which should get more gentle use. Campers and choppers have a high rate of failure due to shock in use.
 
Stacy E. Apelt - Bladesmith said:
It can create high internal stress. This may cause total failure - The Dreaded PING!, or microcracks that may come back to cause problems later on. If you are testing them and they are good, you are probably fine. In some parts of the world all steels are water quenched out of necessity and tradition. They also get a slightly hgigher hardness.
It works better with a kitchen blade which should get more gentle use. Campers and choppers have a high rate of failure due to shock in use.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info, they seem to be alright, I didn't put them through any highly intensive testing, just basic stuff, cutting into some dried cow bone, chopping quite aggressively onto a bamboo chopping board. did some edge of the table flexing, nothing drastic, just about 30+ degrees. To see if it returned to true and didn't take a set or snap, I don't really want to risk doing a 90 degree bend because I tempered at 200c so they are pretty hard and probably not really flexible.
I saw some of the south east asian blacksmiths water quenching 5160, mostly just edge quenching, but they seemed to get pretty good results from it.
I'll steer clear of doing this for big choppers then, and make sure I don't sell or give any hard use knives to people using this method, wouldn't want to cause injuries to people. Thanks as usual.
 
With CS95 steel a water quench is fine. It is the same as 1095, which is considered a water quenching steel ,like W2. Most people use a fast oil like Park's #50, but water will work.
 
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