[jimmontg]

I do wrap the foil on as tight as possible and always have considering its price and if I was doing a plate quench I always wrapped it skin tight as possible. The plates, being cooled would pull the heat out quickly and even the bevel got cooled quickly too. It is all air quench anyway and I never had an edge that wouldn't hold up. I have to give a lot of credit to Hinderliter HT in OKC for my D2 HT, they were my savior on that alloy. Also 440C, the first stainless I ever did and they did the HT leaving me a nice HRC 59-60 hardness which is about the most you can ask of that steel without some brittleness.

I did the plate quench for both D2 and 440C simply because I didn't want to expose the yellow hot metal to the air. I found out later that it doesn't foul the surface too bad if I was quick with the air blast. Hinderliter didn't inform me of that bit of information, thinking I had to have absolutely no surface oxidation. Blame my aerospace experience that sometimes manifests itself as perfectionist fussing.

I still think AEB-L is the easiest stainless to HT. The cryo is just dry ice, a decent 2200 degree oven and foil is all that is needed. Right behind it is 440C with or without cryo.