Use YouTube! Walter Sorrels (a popular American sword/blade smith) has a series on hardening knife steels (O1, D2, 1095,...).You need to know about martensite, austenite, ferrite,... My advince: read Metallurgy of Steel for Bladesmiths & Others who Heat Treat The pdf above is one of the best manuals on practical metallurgyForget the steps you need to take (normalize, quench this, temper that) but understand what they are. If you understand them, you will automatically know what to do when. That way you will understand the reasons of warping, scaling, the concept of differential hardening (often used to get a hamon).Use magnets for detecting critical temperature. Never try to get the steel hotter then necessary. This will increase grain growth.Use a metal cannister for the quenching medium and preheat your medium to 60°C. Google for datasheet 5160. You will get PDF's with scientific information about the steel and how to heat treat, machine, etc. The graphs are very interesting and tell you temper (temperatures,...) to a certain hardness (~HRC, rockwell scale).Read a lot