Heating Evenly for a Heat Treat

[dps9999]

Hey guys. First let me say i have done some searches on this topic both on the web and on this forum. I found a lil but not much so if this is a question that has been answered please point me in the right direction. Ok that being said I am still new to heat treating in my propane forge. I have done much destructive and real world testing and i finally got it to where it is acceptable to me of corse i will always try to keep improving. How ever a problem that i still have is getting a even heat on the blade. I started grinding the blade and MOST of the bevel's but not all then heat treat then finish the bevels after. So then i started only profiling the knife and not doing any of the bevels until after the heat treat to try and help with the uneven heating. It helped but still the tip of the blade still heats faster (wich makes sense). Ok so the searching i did basiclly kept coming up with putting the blade inside of a pipe and placing the whole pipe in the forge. So i did that again it helped but that tip still gets hotter. Then i read about capping the end of the pipe and drill a couple holes in the cap. I welded a piece of plate on one end and drilled 3 small 1/8 holes in it and one 1/4 hole in the middle of the cap. Again it still did not make much difference from when the pipe was uncapped. I also read that you can cap one end with no holes. I have not tried to cover up the holes i drilled mainly because the holes are so few and small i dont think it will make much difference ( i could be wrong AGAIN). But i was curious as to how all of you guys tackle this problem? Does any one use the pipe? Are there any other tricks or tips anyone has? If anyone has some advice i would appreciate it THANKS ahead of time i am sure some one will help as always. Again if this question has been answered some where i would really appreciate it if some one can point me in the right direction.

[Dogsoldat]

Best that I have come up with in my forge is to try and have the meatiest part of the blade in the hottest spot and get heat to travel to the thinner sections.  Thin sections will always heat the quickest  unless your lucky enough to have an induction forge to play with.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Have you tried bringing the temp up slowly? Tossing it in a furnace that is going full throttle may be simply too fast for the heat to soak evenly. Start off at idle, then bump it up slowly after a few minutes to the proper temp. A lower blast in the furnace may be the way to go, as long as the interior is up to the austenitizing temp.

[dps9999]

thanks guys....biggundoctor...usually what i do is turn the forge on fairly high to start just so i can heat up scrap metal to dip in the oil to warm it up usually takes 3 heats of this bar i use to heat the oil. then i knock the flame down to just before the burner starts sputtering off and at that point i have been placing the pipe in the forge and letting the pipe heat up and everything kinda level off then finally put the blade in the pipe and turn the burner up just a lil if needed usually it dont need much.......i actully just tried this again since i made this post and those holes i swaid i had drilled in the end cap for the pipe well i just welded a plate over to cover up the hole and tried putting the blade in the pipe so the tip was at the closed end and it did help still a lil uneven but better than before. i think maybe playing with the fire bricks i use to back the end of the forge and lettiing more or less heat escape by the position of the bricks might help  alot of trial and error i guess........thanks for the advice guys