preventing oxidation during flame heat treating

[p pfeiffer]

I have read about using "soft soap" or "boric acid" and some soft wire wrap to prevent excess oxidation during flame hardening of tool steel. Can anyone help explain these techniques or refer me to a source of explanation of how to do these procedures?

[pete]

A guy on Youtube with the user name of Clickspring uses the boric acid while hardening. It's the only place I've seen it used and it seems to work well. Sorry I can't recall the exact videos where he was using it so it might take some searching. They do offer a stainless steel tool wrap for doing the same. Not used it either but it's quite expensive and easy to cut yourself while handling it.

[tornitore45]

For those that have no oven and rely on color the SS wrap is not even an option.
Clickspring mixes Boric Acid with alcohol. I suppose using water will retard heating and add a source of oxidation but I am not sure why alcohol is specified.
The wire wrapping purpose is not clear to me, but is definitively useful in holding the Boric Acid/Alcohol paste in place rather than flaking off.