[Crex]

Ray - "Clearly different strokes for different folks on the subject of O1. What's really amazing is that we apparently all get good results no matter what process we use. That may be more of a testament to O1 than to our heat treating"
Pretty good lick right there.... seems no matter who, but us that love O1 will "make it work", just to good a steel to push aside.
Sam - got a lot of the same experiences with O1. I forge all my blades, just use the grinder for final profile clean up and sharpening, rest of time it's a handle shaper. I forge as close to finish as possible usually 90%+, because I can. As long as one pays attention to the final heats the results speak for themselves.

Never tried to post straighten a blade of O1 because warpage is rare (for me). I too use Parks 50, just cause it's right there and I also take the temper to 425 or the edge is just a bit too brittle.

This is all good stuff and I like what I'm reading here. Still don't know if we solved the original poster's problem. Do hope we didn't scare him off. Some times you just got to be standing there with them to figure out what's really happening. We often see the same thing just with different eyes and terminology. Science tries to make things more exact, but often gets "muddied" with subjective perspectives. Gotta love it.