Living up to my username - an ongoing thread about Silver Steel

[mainaman]

Silver steel is not named so because it has silver, it is because of appearance.

I googled "silver steel" and here is a nice link with inf about it

Silver Steel - Genuine BS1407 Tool Steel - About

[ScienceGuy]

To comment on a few things.

@Pixelfixed, in materials we can look at hardness as a resistance to deformation. Deformation is a very complex process that involves the slipping of atoms past each other in generally specific directions. There are a lot of things that affect this (for example phase change in steel - why you can make it harder by heating and quenching). One example, if we talk about deformation as motion of regularly-arranged atoms past each other in a single crystal, is to distribute different atoms throughout the structure. If there are different atoms present, even at very low concentrations, it will hamper the free movement of the planes of atoms past each other, hence making the material more resistant to deformation. Even very small percentages can affect this. (There are a lot of other factors at play in bulk materials, like grain size)

Also, if it is truly a chemical alloy (and not just silver and steel mixed together in separate phases) you really can't look at the properties of the separate elements and draw conclusions. Just because silver oxidizes as an element doesn't mean that it will preferentially oxidize as part of the alloy; same goes for hardness. Look at carbon and iron, both are relatively soft elementally (assuming the more common graphite / charcoal) - but when you combine them you can get hard steel.

On the topic of the lead bath, as has been discussed, it's a great uniform temperature reservoir - more constant than just air. Solids can diffuse into each other, but there is an energy barrier required to be overcome for that diffusion to occur, and I doubt that lead would start to diffuse in any significant extent at the temperatures they use. As far as being on the surface, I don't think the lead wets the steel very well so it is easy to remove; perhaps a very small amount remains, but lead oxide is fairly obvious and quick to form - you'd see that.

Interestingly, below is the iron-silver phase diagram. For this system there's almost no solubility of silver at moderate temperatures - it's generally just 'x' + (Ag), which means the system is phase separated and not an alloy. I will keep looking for, and maybe calculate instead, the phase diagram of the Fe-C-Ag system (it could be vastly different).



Also very interesting, when I had the "real silver steel blade" analyzed I saw a relatively large peak for Silicon, which I thought was strange. Then I came across this: Silver steel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm already getting a much better picture of this topic. Maybe they were already calling this composition 'silver steel' and it just happened to coincide with Faraday's experiments?

[fuzzychops]

Sorry guys, I have more bad news...
Turns out there is no gold in Gold Dollar razors.

I ran this elemental analysis on a piece of a Gold Dollar:

[Voidmonster]

To comment on a few things.

Also very interesting, when I had the "real silver steel blade" analyzed I saw a relatively large peak for Silicon, which I thought was strange. Then I came across this: Silver steel - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I'm already getting a much better picture of this topic. Maybe they were already calling this composition 'silver steel' and it just happened to coincide with Faraday's experiments?

The term silver steel definitely began with the Stodart/Faraday experiments, but from pretty much the beginning people were advertising things like 'improved silver steel' and 'perfected silver steel'. I'd guess the Sheffield forgers kept doing the experiment until they found alloying materials with clear benefits that weren't platinum or palladium.

[WW243]

To me looking at the Periodic Table is right up there with Razor Porn, well honestly, it is above Razor Porn but due to the deep thoughts it instills, I select Razor Porn over the PTOTE....more accessible.

Attachment 154420,,,,,,,what's an element ?

[WW243]

Is it possible to get this user banned for blasphemy?

Sorry guys, I have more bad news...
Turns out there is no gold in Gold Dollar razors.

[fuzzychops]

Is it possible to get this user banned for blasphemy?

If they had just a bit more Chromium, I would conclude GOLD dollars are made of SILVER steel.

Actually, considering the quality control of the grinding, the fact that the Chromium content of the Gold Dollar steel is about half the usual value for silver steel is probably not surprising. It seems to me this is closer to silver steel than to any of the usual tool steels.

And if I'm going to be banned for blasphemy, at least let me first say that Jnat abrasives don't break down in the slurry.

[Voidmonster]

Sorry guys, I have more bad news...
Turns out there is no gold in Gold Dollar razors.

You missed the good news, though! Peruvian steel DOES have Peru in it!

(probably, maybe)

[Jimbo]

And we established some time ago that Chronik razors have trout and autistic currents, or something like that. You'd need a fish finder for those experiments, no doubt.

James.

[thebigspendur]

yes, and my red Imp Strop wasn't made by a Red Imp and my Duble Duck Strop has no duck parts in it.