David Weaver
in blasting through a bunch of chisels, blades and knifes lately, I bought 1084 and 1095 just before doing the test that included XHP.

I was smitten with XHP after the test because it's really great in a controlled test. A little less so for work across the board now (it's still the best smoothing iron that I can think of in clean wood).

Having a lot more experience with hardening and tempering (and parks 50 oil, which will just about maximize what you can get out of 1095 and 1084), I figured I'd give 1084 a whirl. I'm looking for a super uniform iron that buffs easily, and have the iron in the toaster oven for the second temper.

It's surprisingly hard tempered at 400 degrees - at the upper limit of what the washita will tolerate, but a second temper should drop it part of a point to a point.

Unfortunately, I didn't measure it, and see that it's 0.11 inches thick -too much for my two stanley planes (and my LN plane is packed and ready to go in the mail), so I will have to file one of the two #4s that I have to use it (and that's OK).

(I thought I might find a cheap late model stanley 4, but went out to ebay....apparently about $80 is the going rate for a clean stanley 4 now (!!!!!) -at least for the listings selling or sold, there's no shortage of asks over $100)