Originally Posted By: Rocketman
Mark, at least in theory, annealing is a reset to "original" properties of hardness for the alloy used.

DDA

The hardness on annealing may have a similarity to the original part, but shouldn't the case, by definition, be a different steel than the original?

Maybe, the original question had to do with each case color cycle adding some bit more carbon and increasing the resulting depth of the case? Are we thinking that annealing removes the carbon that created the original or a subsequent case?