Thank you for the reply. Just went through them again. I guess I was under the assumption that 3 rounds of normalizing would help with grain refinement and then annealing would additionally help to soften the steel to allow ease with drilling holes through the tang (I never had it clear if this was absolutely necessary - I was wondering if the heat prior to annealing after normalizing would increase the grain size again..).
- I obtained this idea from the book "A Modern Guide To Knifemaking" by Laura Zerra - this is the quote: "After the steel has been normalized, it will be relatively hard. Without further processing it will be very difficult to work with tools. By annealing the steel, you bring some of the softness back while maintaining the homogeneous grain structure."
Please let me know your thoughts - HT seems to be one of those subjects that many people have opinions on - I am working to develop a system that works for me and I am open to learning from the wisdom of others.