Thread: What's the history of SR metallurgy over the past 200 years?

Originally Posted by guitstik

Then how did they arrive at the conclusions they did without a basic understanding of metallurgy? You can not tell me that they just happened to stumble on the correct combination of materials AND the use of the crucible not knowing what or why.

That's exactly what happened. Crucible steel was already made centuries before alchemists came up with the fire, earth, water, air, spirit model. Before people even knew about molecules, let alone atoms or the periodic table of mendelev, those people were heat making crucible steel. They knew how to get iron from ore, and eventually made the link between charcoal and iron to make steel, but not more than that.

According to Wikipedia, wootz originated around 300 BC. So no, no basic understanding of atoms, chemical elements, or alloying.

Bruno - I am afraid that we will have to agree to disagree.

You keep mentioning 'they' - but 'they' are still around and it makes no difference to the collective wisdom available. 'They' may work in steel and not know much about alloys etc outside of what they have been trained to do, but that does not make this age ignorant. 'They' might drive cars and be totally ignorant of basic mechanics and the workings of the internal combustion engine, but we are not defined by 'they' but by what we collectively know, even if that wisdom is known intimately to only a few.

Let's put the kybosh on your 'pre 1900' theory.

Benjamin Huntsman, born in 1704 became an established locksmith, clock maker, surgeon and oculist. He became disatisfied with the German steel he was importing for watch springs and pendulums, so began experimenting - in secret. He came up with crucible steel, but could not sell it in England because of jealous competition so it sold instead to France as the Acier Fondu we are all familiar with. He contributed so much to metallurgy that he was asked to join the Royal Society, but he thought that would interfere with his extensive secret experiments, so he declined. He moved to Sheffiled and continued experimenting - in secret. From the story of Walker, the freezing 'beggar' in the snow-ridden night given sanctuary by Huntsman's men, we are told that the secret lay in coke for fuel, the ore, and the flux, which appeared to be bits of green glass. So, its carbon and iron. That is what makes steel.

We then find that the ore came from one of Sweden's best known mines - Dannemora (only shut in 1992) and that it is a very pure iron ore. Why is it pure? Because of its manganese content. So, we have an alloy, and an ore, the results of a great deal of secret experimentation. Not wishful thinking or the clumsy serendipitous accident of a fool. How about the flux (of which a great deal, some positive, some negative) has been written. What is a flux - why is it necessary. It purifies the iron by allowing impurities from it (the ore) and the fuel to fuse and melt and form slag. Again, it is the result of many experiments. Why do some people disbelieve all this, particularly the exact nature (and some even doubt the presence) of the flux? Because the very extensive research was done in secret, and no manuals or printed matter remain.

How about the iron man, David Mushet, born in 1772?
His father had a small foundry where he was permitted, and after many experiments into iron he managed to make steel from wrought iron at the famous Clydebank Works. In 1801 he opened his own works - the Calder Iron Works. Here he made the local 'wild coal' also known as black band ironstone into good iron - it was previously considered useless. By 1805 he had submitted a lot of work to the Philosophical Society and gained such a reputation that he was acknowledged as a leading expert in iron and steel.

He then moved to England, the Forest of Dean, and Whitecliff Iron Works and the Darkhill Iron Works. He became a director of the British Iron Company. His experiments, started at his fathers foundry, then continued at night in his own time when he first became employed were copious. His essays on iron and steel and its component parts were widely published and considered 'the word' on the subject. He retired in 1845 and left his son, Robert, to carry on the work...

Robert Forester Mushet, born 1811, took over management of the Darkhill works in 1845. In 1848 he was at the Forest Steel Works and in 1862 the Titanic Steel Works. If his father was called The Man of Iron, then surely Robert his son was The Man of Steel. Like his father, he experimented all the time, and particularly with alloying agents. In 1848 he was handed a whitish lump, and recorded for posterity here are his words:

... "Being familiar with alloys of iron and manganese," says Mr. Mushet, "I at once recognized this lump of metal as an alloy of these two metals and, as such, of great value in the making of steel. Later, I found that the white metallic alloy was the product of steel ore, called also spathose iron ore, being, in fact, a double carbonate of iron and manganese found in the Rhenish mountains, and that it was most carefully selected and smelted in small blast furnaces, charcoal fuel alone being employed and the only flux used being lime. The metal was run from the furnace into shallow iron troughs similar to the old refiners' boxes, and the cakes thus formed, when cold and broken up, showed large and beautifully bright facets and crystals specked with minute spots of uncombined carbon. It was called, from its brightness, 'spiegel glanz' or spiegel eisen, i.e., looking-glass iron. Practically its analysis was: Iron, 86…25; manganese, 8…50; and carbon, 5…25; making a total of 100…00."

Getting a sinking feeling, Bruno? Then how about one of the most remarkable series of alloy experiments, carried out by Stodart and true Renaissance man, Michael Faraday?

Michael Faraday, born 1791, although a mere blacksmith's son was one of the most influential scientists ever produced by England. The list of his scientific achievements goes on and on and can fill books, but we shall only concern ourselves with the series of experiments he undertook with James Stodart, famed cutler and maker of razors using wootz.

The two built a blast furnace, and Stodart made ingots under Faraday's direction. The work was summarised in a paper called "Experiments on the Alloys of Steel [...] by Stodart & Faraday" and after analysing wootz and finding it to have a minute portion of alumina and silex and to be very pure, they used it as the base to add alloys to. They also made their own iron from steel and subjected it to minute scientific analysis, commenting on the presence of alumina and tellurium and measuring down to a grains accuracy - there are 7000 grains to one pound. The woots was forged, formed and remelted lots of times, always presenting its peculiar damascen appearance after acid had acted on it. They had analysed wootz, which they had from Bombay, India, and now they made their own. They analysed iron from meteors finding nickel in it, 3% nickel content from arctic meteors and 10% from Siberian meteors. They took various samples and an average nickel content was just under 9 per cent, so they made their own 'meteoric' iron.

Some of the alloying agents used were:
nickel,
platinum,
rhodium,
silver,
gold,
copper,
tin.

The paper was published in 1822, works had been underway for years before this. Some leading cutlery firms started using silver steel, among which were Green, Pickslay & Co who called their metal Peruvian Steel after the silver mines in South America where the silver came from. Adam Padley, another fine cutler and razor maker later took the Peruvian name for his own.

I hope that helps people to understand that although we are collectively wiser now (I sometimes doubt this when I see gangs of kids in hoods with their pants half way down their ass talking like people from a continent they have never visited) the intelligentsia of that time was as inspiring as ours is now. They certainly did not set out in pure ignorance and stumble upon their greatest inventions - these men were true scientists, working in controlled surroundings, analysing and reporting on what they found in the true scientific manner.

If it does not help - tough. Your loss.

Regards,
Neil

It does help. I don't have a sinking feling because I am not emotionally invested in the argument. Live and learn. I can admit when I am wrong. When I looked up alloying on wikipedia, it also said 'Mangalloy, an alloy of steel and manganese exhibiting extreme hardness and toughness, was one of the first alloy steels, and was created by Robert Hadfield in 1882.[21]'

Which lead me to believe that alloying on industrial scale was not done before then. A quick check of the various alloying elements and when they were first discovered: tungsten (1781) vanadium (1801) and manganese (1774) also shows that alloying could not have been understood before then. Or rather, perhaps alloying as a principle was understood, but not the various elements and their effect, before the 1770s, since they were not even discovered.

So you're right about the timeframe for straight razor manufacture. Those looking for / needing the scientific knowledge would have found it. Everything before 1700s however is logically still a stumbled upon process, helped by observation and experience, but without scientific underpinning.

That's very gentlemanly of you Bruno - you will have to adjust that "Bruno Is Always Right" emoticon now...

For the record, I confined myself to the 1800s, purely because you stated 'pre 1900' - moving the goalposts now to 'pre 1770' is a bit annoying, but even the drowning grasp at a straw, or so I am told.

'Stumbling upon something' is the story of the modern world - nearly everything that enriches our lives can be traced - if you want to go far enough back - to stumbling upon something.

I guess that 'life' was stumbled upon this planet and that is tracing all we are back to an accident. A happy one though. I consider myself very lucky to become emotionally invested in things, even simple things - it enriches my life. Sterile, cold, analytical existence is not for me, so I guess we are destined for very different heavens - if either of us is heaven-bound, that is...

Regards, and thanks for graciously acknowledging your error,
Neil

Getting back on topic .......... I've always been fascinated by the investigation into the receivers failing in 1903 Springfield rifles in WWI . It was discovered that the smiths heat treating the receivers were not using pyrometers even though they had access to them. They were going by the color of the metal and that was found to vary substantially depending on whether it was overcast or sunny. Interesting stuff.

Originally Posted by JimmyHAD

Getting back on topic .......... I've always been fascinated by the investigation into the receivers failing in 1903 Springfield rifles in WWI . It was discovered that the smiths heat treating the receivers were not using pyrometers even though they had access to them. They were going by the color of the metal and that was found to vary substantially depending on whether it was overcast or sunny. Interesting stuff.

True. I HT by color, and found out one day that on a bright sunny day, this is very error prone. Best is when it is overcast, or there is no direct sunlight. In the direct sun I've found it very difficult to judge color accurately.

Fascinating thread! So much going on hundreds of years ago. Neil, I appreciate the information of these men of steel, their accomplishments and contributions!

Originally Posted by Mike Blue

The Ulfbert blades were likely forged on a base material from Frankish era steel smelts. For the day, the Franks made some of the best cleanest stuff ever seen using ancient techniques. No one can be certain how to reproduce it, and some of us, like Ric, are taking

I might recall wrongly here but I'm pretty sure the program where that chap recreated an ulfbert blade came to the conclusion the steel they used was likely to have been imported from the middle east.

Originally Posted by mike1011

I might recall wrongly here but I'm pretty sure the program where that chap recreated an ulfbert blade came to the conclusion the steel they used was likely to have been imported from the middle east.

Still, the Middle East 800-1000AD was and is a far cry from the 1700's when it was (re)discovered.

Originally Posted by mike1011

I might recall wrongly here but I'm pretty sure the program where that chap recreated an ulfbert blade came to the conclusion the steel they used was likely to have been imported from the middle east.

There is no wrong recollection because there are none alive who can tell us what was the truth. The best suppositions (and Ric and others operate carefully in that domain) are that there was some fluidity in trade in Europe that had to have overlap with Asia and the Middle East. Frankish steels were prized above wootz for the simple reason that they would survive a Russian winter. For that program, Ric used essentially a South Asian type of smelter with the most basic of materials.

There are copper mines in the Great Lakes Region of North America attributed to the Grecian era when bronze was the most highly prized metal. I believe we'd be very surprised to find that trade was far more active than we know. Good materials undoubtedly generated more income because of scarcity and reputation.