heat treating foil

[snowblade]

hi, thanks in advance for replieing to my questions, my old webtv broswer dos not like me to respond to threads for some reason. my question is on heat treatind foil. i recently did a blade of O! steel in a home made charcoal burning forge. i got the blade hot enough allright, but after tempering, the blade was full of blisters like i never seen before. it seems like they went right into the metal. after a lot of sanding i got them out, but i was wondering if that stainless foil would help. do you just wrap it up tight and heat the blade as usual or what? any advce would help. wish this site had spellcheck!! thanks,jeri

[McAhron]

Coating the blade with a thin layer of satanite will help reduce scale and other nasties.Also heat treeating the blade while its in a pipe will help.Putting a piece of wood in the pipe to burn up all the oxygen will help.Do all three of these and useing the proper temperature will almost eliminate the nasties.

[Crex]

I don't believe the foil will prevent the "blisters". Sounds like you're de-carbing due to to high a heat before the quench. Probably need to consentrate on controlling your temperature, most likely you are going way over critical.

[RICK LOWE]

If you're using bbq grill charcoal, that can cause those "blisters". I had the same problem and really understand the amount of sanding it takes to remove 'em. Problem ended when I went to a propane forge. The suggestions given would help, I'm sure, if you have to stay with the carcoal.
Rick