Hey Gents, new guy question,.. I just built a heat treating oven with a kanthal element, which works great... but when I heat treat O1 I've been preheating to 1300F for 15 mins then ramping to 1500F and soaking for 30 mins before quenching. When I do this I end up getting a lot of blade anomalies. It almost looks like a damascus etch on the surface maybe .040" deep but totally random. I had a friend tell me that it's possibly carbon forming on the blade during austenitizing. He also recommended using stainless foil to wrap the blade in during heat treat. Anyone else ever have this problem and will wrapping with the foil stop it? I'm trying to figure out if my oven element didn't oxidize long enough, or if I possibly contaminated my oven.
Thanks ahead of time,
Crow
Thanks ahead of time,
Crow