Here's an e-mail that I got off-list that I thought would be helpful to
have in the archives. My responses included at the end:

>Gah, that's a weenie little tang for such a big honking chisel.
>>Anyway:
>
>If you bought Starret bar stock (and it sure reads like you did), >you
>should not need to do any normalising to it, since it comes that >way,
>and I see no evidence that you beat on it with a hammer. But you >can
>if it makes you happy.
>
>I hope you didn't sharpen it. You need to leave a bit on the edge >to
>be ground off. Likewise you expect to remove a bit from the back. This
>has to do with expecting a bit of decarb on the surface with normal
>heat treat facilites of human beings. It also compensates >for any
>little motions that might occur with heat treat.
>
>Standard blacksmith method, at least the one I was taught, is to >heat
>it to critical and quench _vertically_ (point/edge first - this >helps
>to reduce the warpage potential), moving it up and down a little >so
>that there is not a sharp line of differential cooling as would happen
>if it were held at a fixed depth. This is easy with a >water quench, if
>your oil catches on fire you may decide to let go and >slap a cover
>(never use an oil quench without having a tightly fitting cover handy
>to smother it with) on the flaming oil. Assuming that >you succeed and
>are not flaming, you pull the tip out when it's >quenched and _quickly_
>polish a stripe up to the tip. Then watch the >colors run, as the heat
>from the part not quenched re-heats the tip. >Quench when the color you
>want hits the tip. This makes an inherently >soft tang and hard tip.
>
>Of course, according to Ron Hock (quite recent discussion, check >list
>archives), you want it harder than you can see colors, though >this
>disagees with many references regarding hardness of woodworking tools.
>But few people complain about his plane irons chipping, >and many
>people love them, so he _might_ just have a point ;-).
>
>In any case, I'm darned if I know what you mean by "triple >tempering
>the tang", since tempering is purely a matter of temperature, not
>number of times. If you quench the whole thing and temper the >whole
>thing to Ron's suggested temperature for the edge, then heat the >tang
>hotter, it should also be fine. Have the tempering means set up >and do
>not delay tempering - full-hard non-tempered steel is >remarkably
>fragile. I'd get the tang and near-tang blade up to a nice >springy
>blue, if going that way.

My responses:

The tang is a full 1/4" wide. Looks small, but has plenty of beef. My
plan was to normalise the steel to prevent warpage due to any stresses
induced during machining/forming and yes it does make me happy! :) The
chisel has a blunt edge of about 1/16" - so no, I didn't sharpen it
since I plan to grind about 10 thou away to get rid of the decarburized
layer. I guess the whole "triple tempered" idea was a bit of hyperbole
that I didn't make obvious enough. So let's see, maybe I should
octuple-temper the tang? :) Thanks for the great advice.

-Andy