[Doug Lester]

First of all I no longer use 1095 as all that I have for heat treating is a propane forge and I feel that I would be better off heat treating steel that has 85 points of carbon or less to avoid building up retained austinite. You, on the other hand, are building a regulated electric oven that can handle austenizing steel under regulated conditions. So that gives you a leg up on me.

Another thing, I'm a smith so I'm routinely heating my steel up above 1600? so I'm just going to get scale formation during the forging process. However, I don't seem to get much austenizing the steel while looking for the decalesence to pass and then soak for about a half minute using something like 1084. Nor do I run into problems with pitting. I also think that worries about decarberization are a little overblown, especially if all you are austenizing steel for is to harden it. Now, if you were getting the steel up to welding temperatures, 2200?-2300?, for extended periods, yes you are going to have problems with decarberization.

As far as whether it's better to prevent scaling while austenizing or removing the scale later, it's up to you. I tried a powder to coat my blades to prevent scaling while austenizing for hardening but the compound seemed to be as much trouble getting off as soaking in vinegar. I needed to boil it in water and there still was a little that I had to take off with a grinding belt. Some just clean it all off with a grinding belt but they probably go through belts a little faster as scale can be a little hard on them.

Doug