your grain structure is very coarse. Research "normalizing procedures". Will get you taken care of.

Phillip, please get your photo reduced to be within forum guidelines: "For images within posts there are image posting size rules in effect to keep the image uploads at 1,000 x 1,000 pixels or less and under 500k in file size and for Gallery images keep the image uploads at 600x480 pixels or less and under 50k in file size."

Thanks.

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I tried to start a 5160 blade after I quenched I set it on my work bench and it broke. The grain structure appears to be of very fine sand. What is it supposed to look like after quench.

It should appear very small and velvety. Make yourself a standard by quenching and breaking a new piece (unworked) of the steel you are using and quench it, then break off a large piece by striking it on the anvil. However, if you quenched your steel and then left it on the bench in an "as-quenched" state, I'm not surprised that it broke. Temper as soon as you can after quenching, as freshly quenched steel is under a lot of internal stress and is just looking for an excuse to crack.

I was at the ABS Beginning Bladesmith course a couple of weeks ago, and Jim Crowell did a demo for us on grain structure. He heated the steel so that it was too hot at the tip and closer to quench temp towards the base. He then put it in a vise and broke it off into a few pieces. You can see how different the grain structure is from left to right (the right side obviously being closer to what you want in your knife grain). It's pretty interesting to see these different grain sizes all next to each other.