Thread: Sheffield steel superiority

Originally Posted by beluga

That is something any of the following might have said: Mary Stuart, Anne Boleyn, or Thomas More.


B.



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Now that is a superb comment in the most witty way, bravo, much appreciated.

Bloody Mary went down hard if I recall with about a dozen or so grossly incompetent axe blows before he got her head off, and then when he picked her head up, I believe her wig fell off and the head rolled around on the floor, they found her little dog under her skirts, and it sat there for hours....

I think it is more about the processes that were used by the craftsman than the source of the steel. Just like some guys can hone a razor to a beautiful edge in no time, and a less experienced person could take triple the time with the best gear and still have a razor that won't shave.
I would like to know what the make up of the steel is, scientifically speaking, not "its the smoothest I ever felt". There will likely be a very close metallurgical match available in a more consistently manufactured modern steel. Then once we KNOW what the steel is the real work starts.
How was it heat treated, thermocycles used for grain refinement, multiple quenches or single, soak time at temp, what was the tempering process, one cycle, three cycles, whats the final HRc? That one piece of steel can be treated many different ways, and the final product will vary from shop to shop, or maker to maker from superb to trash and everything in-between.

You can take a standard piece of 0-1 (I know soulless and nothing like "Sheffield steel" lol) and the heat treat possibilities alone can give that steel a huge variation in performance. I believe those blade smiths that made Sheffield steel famous had their heat treating and tempering processes refined to the point of making a stand out product. There is a lot that goes into giving a hunk of steel that soul and just as many ways to screw it up.

Think about your favorite grandmothers cooking, you think she makes the best apple pie in the world. If your grandma left the same ingredients on the counter for your wife to make you that favorite apple pie...well , there could be a lot of variation. Now if she shared the secrets of 60 years in the kitchen with your wife and taught her, that pie is now not so hard to duplicate.

Is this the best O-1 in the world? Or is it just O-1?



So, does anyone know what kind of steel they use in Sheffield England to make those excellent quality razors ?
Thats what I want to know, and that answer is only coming from someone wearing a lab coat who can definitively tell us what the elemental make up of the steel is. There is surely a modern, more consistent steel available. It's a low tech carbon steel, would probably surprise many of us.

There is no arguing they made a superior product, now to hunt down that dude in the lab coat so we can get the answer.

When you put in a long and hard apprenticeship, starting in some cases as a preteen, You do get to be very competent in your trade. I think that was true in most countries at that time period. You just can't beat hard earned experience in turning out an excellent product.

Bob

It was also mentioned that it was also the iron foundry, and what that contained and may have contaminated the steel with, that also may have given the steel some unknown, mysterious aspect.

Swedish ore may have been used in a number of instances as mentioned, but it is the artisan, the heat treatment, and the foundry itself that all contributed to make Sheffield steel what it is. To recreate all those factors is essentially what you'd need to replicate in order to return to even a semblance of the original Sheffield steel.

I was exchanging some PM's with another member, and mentioned one of the aspects that have really held me back from pursuing the custom route is when I tried a few customs, now my opinion only, I always felt the razor felt like a wrench that had been turned into a razor. I never liked the feel of the steel....

Originally Posted by AKmik

Think about your favorite grandmothers cooking, you think she makes the best apple pie in the world. If your grandma left the same ingredients on the counter for your wife to make you that favorite apple pie...well , there could be a lot of variation. Now if she shared the secrets of 60 years in the kitchen with your wife and taught her, that pie is now not so hard to duplicate.

Unfortunately, even the recipe would not guarantee the the same results. There are still a huge amount of variables.

It's not *just* the ingredients, it is how you handle them. Grinding a piece of tool steel will produce a different result than first forging it. In the 1800s forging would depend on the skill of the smith, how quickly, how many strikes of the hammer, the coal in the forge used for heating, exactly at what temperature was the blank pulled out of the forge.. Just heat treating is a small part of the whole process. Today we heat soak, cryogenic treat etc.... but in the 1800s there was no such thing, not even accurate thermometers for those temperatures... just the seat of the pants of the workmen and their experience.

Going back to Grandma and her apple pie... What apples, how ripe, who's butter, how well dried was it... how much salt in the butter, or perhaps there was none at all... How were the apples cut, thickness etc. and then there's the flour, how damp was it, how finely milled, did the mill that made the flour include any extra ingredients, was it stone ground or some other method, how was the dough handled, we know less is more, but depending on the temperature, humidity, weather and time of the day, they can all influence how you handle the dough that particular time/day. ( I won't even go to the fact that finding those ingredients, made the same way, would be almost impossible to find today... even Apple orchards and the apples they grow have changed significantly in the past 60 years).

Someone brought up poor quality steel... it probably had the right mix of ingredients, but the foundry was careless in how they handled it, or perhaps they did not have the right knowledge to produce that grade of steel, and ended up with microscopic air bubbles, then again, sometimes it's not even about the knowledge, but rather it's being produced to a price point. If you don't want to pay for quality, you don't get it. I remember when they began to copy US made woodworking machinery in the far East. It was terrible quality as some workers simply took apart US made machines and used those parts to make molds, not worrying (or perhaps even knowing) about the fact that cast iron shrinks and you need to make your molds slightly larger to accommodate that fact. Later, the same companies, now having learned how to do things properly, began to complain that the buyers would not pay for the extra work required to make a quality product... The buyers wanted the cheap stuff because they could make a better profit.

I do get a bit cranky when I'm told "our products only use virgin steel".... Sorry, but iron oxide dug out of the ground is NOT virgin steel. It's what you do with your ingredients that matters... if you start with old cars, it's a lot cleaner than ore.... but if you just melt them down without doing the rest of the work, you'll end up with a poor product, just as you would if you started from plain ore which is also full of contaminates.

So, I don't think it's a magical ingredient (one rusty old razor would give you all the information required if analyzed in a modern foundry's lab), I just think the workers of the day took pride in their skills and they just did the best they knew how at the time.

Regards

Christian

Originally Posted by kaptain_zero

Unfortunately, even the recipe would not guarantee the the same results. There are still a huge amount of variables.

It's not *just* the ingredients, it is how you handle them. Grinding a piece of tool steel will produce a different result than first forging it. In the 1800s forging would depend on the skill of the smith, how quickly, how many strikes of the hammer, the coal in the forge used for heating, exactly at what temperature was the blank pulled out of the forge.. Just heat treating is a small part of the whole process. Today we heat soak, cryogenic treat etc.... but in the 1800s there was no such thing, not even accurate thermometers for those temperatures... just the seat of the pants of the workmen and their experience.

Going back to Grandma and her apple pie... What apples, how ripe, who's butter, how well dried was it... how much salt in the butter, or perhaps there was none at all... How were the apples cut, thickness etc. and then there's the flour, how damp was it, how finely milled, did the mill that made the flour include any extra ingredients, was it stone ground or some other method, how was the dough handled, we know less is more, but depending on the temperature, humidity, weather and time of the day, they can all influence how you handle the dough that particular time/day. ( I won't even go to the fact that finding those ingredients, made the same way, would be almost impossible to find today... even Apple orchards and the apples they grow have changed significantly in the past 60 years).

Someone brought up poor quality steel... it probably had the right mix of ingredients, but the foundry was careless in how they handled it, or perhaps they did not have the right knowledge to produce that grade of steel, and ended up with microscopic air bubbles, then again, sometimes it's not even about the knowledge, but rather it's being produced to a price point. If you don't want to pay for quality, you don't get it. I remember when they began to copy US made woodworking machinery in the far East. It was terrible quality as some workers simply took apart US made machines and used those parts to make molds, not worrying (or perhaps even knowing) about the fact that cast iron shrinks and you need to make your molds slightly larger to accommodate that fact. Later, the same companies, now having learned how to do things properly, began to complain that the buyers would not pay for the extra work required to make a quality product... The buyers wanted the cheap stuff because they could make a better profit.

I do get a bit cranky when I'm told "our products only use virgin steel".... Sorry, but iron oxide dug out of the ground is NOT virgin steel. It's what you do with your ingredients that matters... if you start with old cars, it's a lot cleaner than ore.... but if you just melt them down without doing the rest of the work, you'll end up with a poor product, just as you would if you started from plain ore which is also full of contaminates.

So, I don't think it's a magical ingredient (one rusty old razor would give you all the information required if analyzed in a modern foundry's lab), I just think the workers of the day took pride in their skills and they just did the best they knew how at the time.

Regards

Christian

Pretty much what I said earlier. I agree on the craftsmanship aspect.
My point was once we KNOW what the steel is, and know what its modern equivalent is, we would have a starting point. that's all the testing would do.

Getting similar end results with that steel will definitely take work, but it is far from impossible in my mind. Absolutely there are 1000 variables in the production process, forging, stock removal, heat treat , temper ect... But what's in the steel is what's in the steel and that won't change.

I just want to know what modern blade steel most closely matches the stock that those old craftsman at W&B pulled from the rack. I think there are plenty of skilled blade smiths out there that can take that steel with some trial and error and reproduce the same quality of days gone bye.

I agree with BobH,
That the steel will likely be underwhelming by todays standards.

Originally Posted by Phrank

Now that is a superb comment in the most witty way, bravo, much appreciated.

Bloody Mary went down hard if I recall with about a dozen or so grossly incompetent axe blows before he got her head off, and then when he picked her head up, I believe her wig fell off and the head rolled around on the floor, they found her little dog under her skirts, and it sat there for hours....

Not sure which Mary you're thinking of Phrank - but Bloody Mary was Henry XIII's daughter and became Queen after the deaths of her brother - the 'Bloody' was attached to her because of all the people who were burned at the stake during her comparatively short reign (she, like her mother, was Catholic and passionately against the reforms that were introduced by her father). In any event her death was from natural causes - maybe you are thinking of Mary Queen of Scots - Queen Elizabeth's cousin - who was beheaded for plotting against Elizabeth.

When I got my Sheffield 2 weeks ago, I just couldn't put my finger on what it compared with. I then took out a couple of my 100 year old Genco's and saw a very similar performance in smoothness and and the edge. Something about the old steel and grinding techniques I guess. I also have a couple of new Mastro Livi's that perform the same way.

Originally Posted by UKRob

Not sure which Mary you're thinking of Phrank - but Bloody Mary was Henry XIII's daughter and became Queen after the deaths of her brother - the 'Bloody' was attached to her because of all the people who were burned at the stake during her comparatively short reign (she, like her mother, was Catholic and passionately against the reforms that were introduced by her father). In any event her death was from natural causes - maybe you are thinking of Mary Queen of Scots - Queen Elizabeth's cousin - who was beheaded for plotting against Elizabeth.

That's the one, got my Queen's mixed up, well at least I didn't think Freddie Mercury lost his head to the axe....

AKmik, I love that wrench razor!
I may need to try to make one someday.
Metric from Germany in a hollow ground, and maybe a good ole snap on wedge..
Great read this thread is..