[Ian]

Why not make an electric heat treating oven? In fact I thought a lot of knife makers used a normal domestic oven to heat treat? If you can get the guts of one a simple kiln type box around lightweight refractory bricks would work well IMO. The refractory bricks are much better than the standard refractory in a cooker so it would probably get a lot hotter too, but remain 'dialable'. I've seen designs somewhere for a really nice electric furnace on the net. Think it was one of the british knife forums.