Hi Mike and welcome. You will get a lot of different answers from different people on how "proper" heat treatment should be done. I will give you my opinion, take from it what you will.

I fully quench every knife I make and that includes the tang area as well. Then I temper the entire knife at whatever temperature is appropriate for the steel and intended use. (see this thread for HT info and this for the ITT diagram)For your intended use I would suggest tempering somewhere around 350*F-400*F for a more "tough" temper. (other opinions may differ so pick your favorite)I then draw back my tangs (on all knives) for guard/furniture fitting and more resilience.

The reason I do it this way is to avoid any hard phase transitions in the knife structure. You often hear about the different phases (martensite, bainite, pearlite, etc.) I prefer to make everything uniform and control what areas I reduce through applied localized heating. When I draw back a tang after tempering, I do it with a standard propane plumber's torch and it comes out looking like this.

I am in the same boat as Joshua. It makes sense to me that if you want the full strength and toughness from 5160 I would want the hole blade heat treated properly. I think the main reason people edge quench is too get a temper line on the blade. Which from a selling point of view probably sells quicker then a plain so called boring looking blade. Even though I think a plain carbon steel blade with a clean satin finish looks better then anything.

Tempered martensite is very strong.

|quoted:

Tempered martensite is very strong.

Why settle for anything less? <img src=' http://www.americanbladesmith.com/ipboard/public/style_emoticons//laugh.gi f' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':lol:' />

Full quench, with appropriate temper. As has been pointed out by the others here, tempered martensite will give you the best optimization of strength to toughness, but I could give you the underlying reasons if needed. I never edge quench, I don't even teach it anymore.