Thread: Sheffield silver steel

Originally Posted by saladbar2000

I like how the junior members keep trying to correct the senior members

Just trying to prevent "Swelled Head Syndrome".

Originally Posted by blueprinciple

Wrong - Michael Faraday invented it and silver was added at a 1% ratio, now replaced (sometimes) by chrome or molybdenum.

Wrong, it was .02%.

Originally Posted by Jonedangerousli

The "Junior" or "Senior" tag is totally dependent on the number of posts a person has made here. It is totally and completely irrelevant as a means to determine whether a person is right or wrong on any subject.

That's what I thought.

Originally Posted by ernestrome

Wrong, it was .02%.

Hey maybe he just liked really shiny knives with 1% - you are of course correct - did it from memory (not a good idea these days!) and it was indeed, irrefutably and absolutely .02% (unless his hand slipped ) Personally I think he was an alchemist.

Of course, most of the early scientists were alchemists.

Translation of Issac Newton c. 1680.


1) Tis true without lying, certain & most true.
2) That wch is below is like that wch is above & that wch is above is like yt wch is below to do ye miracles of one only thing.
3) And as all things have been & arose from one by ye mediation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation.
4) The Sun is its father, the moon its mother,
5) the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth its nourse.
6) The father of all perfection in ye whole world is here.
7) Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth.
7a) Seperate thou ye earth from ye fire, ye subtile from the gross sweetly wth great indoustry.
8) It ascends from ye earth to ye heaven & again it desends to ye earth and receives ye force of things superior & inferior.
9) By this means you shall have ye glory of ye whole world & thereby all obscurity shall fly from you.
10) Its force is above all force. ffor it vanquishes every subtile thing & penetrates every solid thing.
11a) So was ye world created.
12) From this are & do come admirable adaptaions whereof ye means (Or process) is here in this.
13) Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist, having the three parts of ye philosophy of ye whole world.
14) That wch I have said of ye operation of ye Sun is accomplished & ended.
[Dobbs 1988: 183-4.]

It has been known for a long time that silver was a natural antibiotic, and since silvered steel was intended for use in medical instruments this is likely the reason.

Silver is still used for this purpose today - it is sometimes added to antibiotic cremes, and I've seen silver gauze used during surgeries (mostly cranial surgeries) to protect exposed tissue from infection during the surgery.

Then there was that idiot in Montana that was running for senator a few years ago, that had taken colloidal silver in the runup to Y2K thinking it would keep him healthy after civilization collapsed. Maybe it yet will, but mostly it just turned him into a smurf.