Thread: Silver Steel vs Carbon Steel?

Yesterday was the best day to find another something to do...

Ul, the best that I can say is "they are like what we recognize as O-1". Current industrial standards allow for a range of elements that fit within what is known as O-1. But, that could mean any particular melt could be at the high end or low end of the ranges and still be O-1. It could perform differently depending on lots of variables. Old melts of steel may be "like O-1" but diverge entirely from there. Old silversteel would suffer the same hedging on my part. I can only say that metallurgically, the old steels fall into the same range as O-1. Back then I dont' think they intended to make O-1 but were after a repeat batch of what worked the last time. Much more fudge involved according to our current steel practices.

I once had occasion to play with some old Koto era Japanese swords. While I can say that pieces of the material have high carbon and fall within the range of materials I'd recognize today as tool steel, they do not work anything like modern materials. That's a separate legend.

But talking about industrial standards and the statistical slop allowed is a whole nother kettle of fish compared to being able to "eyeball" something. The engineers hardly ever have the same sense of things that the shop floor guys do. I'd be grateful if I could eyeball something like that. I've not handled enough razors yet for that myself.

Yesterday was the best day to find another something to do...

I'm sure about the hype. Even in the "old days" everyone knew that some steel manufacturers made a better product than the other guys. Nowadays, there are so many car bumpers and weird little elements that drift into the big melts that nothing is certain except for the large percentage content like carbon or major alloys.