[TheForge] Scale

[Bob Rackers]

I'm curious how everyone deals with scale?
I've got a couple of problems with it that I find irritating.

The first problem results from the fact that I often hammer metal pretty thin.
The thinner it gets, the more important it is I have a high heat, or else it
cools by the time I get it to the anvil.
It also means I have often have no time to brush off the scale before working
it, so I end up with the texture of the scale pounded into the metal.
The high heat, though, creates a lot of scale, which creates a lot of texture
in the metal despite my best efforts to avoid it.

I could leave it thicker and file/grind to final thickness to remove the
texture.
I could also try working it at a temperature that doesn't create scale, though
I doubt I'd get much accomplished trying that.
So what's the solution?

The second problem is that I notice that when I take a high heat, and attempt
to brush off the scale, sometimes it comes off very easily, and other times
some comes off easily and some refuses to come off. I can't figure out why some
of it's so tenacious. I've attempted taking it to a very high heat to make it
easier to remove, but that often fails as well. I hate to work the metal in
that condition because I end up texturing the metal from the scale, but up to
now I've not found a way to remove it all first when it does this.
Anyone else encountered the same problem?

I've heard some bladesmiths use water on the anvil to blast the scale off as
they're working.
Anyone ever tried it?

Bob