Thread: Vintage Carbon steel properties????

Recently I was part of debate in which one member said that vintage carbon steels (100 and more years old) loose their cutting performances.
We did not go deeper in that constatation and I did not ask him for arguments about that (debate was about something else so it would be "off topic" to discuss about steels) but I am interested in your oppinions.
Also, he mention that this is not in connection with rust, pitting....than perfectly preserved steels.

Originally Posted by KING2011

Recently I was part of debate in which one member said that vintage carbon steels (100 and more years old) loose their cutting performances.
We did not go deeper in that constatation and I did not ask him for arguments about that (debate was about something else so it would be "off topic" to discuss about steels) but I am interested in your oppinions.
Also, he mention that this is not in connection with rust, pitting....than perfectly preserved steels.

This sort of question surfaces from time to time and there are a lot
of opinions on this. Mostly they are personal
opinions supported by a small sample or the extrapolation
of a small data set.

For example: heat treatment leaves the steel in a non equilibrium state
as a result of the quench that locks in higher temp crystal structures.
These happen to be too brittle so they are tempered to let some
but not all the material return to equilibrium structure. Some might
assert that in 100 years the natural tempering can take place.

But as a blanket statement this is just not so. Many 100 year
old razors shave just fine.

Also 100 years takes you back to the start of modern steel making.
A lot of steel before the modern age depended on luck and lore to
be good.

An obvious counter argument to the 100 year number
is Japanese sword steel.

Good steel and good heat treatment should
not be an issue in the modern world. As the
list or razors to avoid will attest
there is a long list of bad stuff out there,
some of which is new. Given what is known
today even a razor from Pakistan should
be good correctly tempered steel but they are not.
Same for some but not all the stuff coming out of
China.

Also you mentioned "cutting". For knife folk
the qualities that make a knife cut well are not
the qualities razor makers look for in good
razor steel. This alone can confuse the
discussion.

So do search for the original discussion... There may
well be a detail that has escaped memory and puts
the discussion into a context that makes sense.

I've not ran across this before....at least not this form of the debate. I have no opinion one way or another...but I was on a damascus/wootz research kick awhile ago and ran across something, somewhere, mentioning that the idea behind "cryo" treatment is actually centuries old. The old smiths found that if they packed their swords in the snow over winter it would accelerate the aging/maturing of the steel.



I've thrown my shot glass worth of fuel on the fire. And now, I'll bid you all goodnight! lol

I do not see how one can prove either point without big test pool.
If the razor is made properly e.g. good HT/grind/honing, it will shave just fine no matter when made.

They might be on safer ground by saying age can produce deterioration of the steel. We all know that a considerable number of early nineteenth century razors still work extremely well. Many years ago I saw an article in a knifemaking article in which someone found that an extremely old razor still held its edge better than most, either its contemporaries or modern, and he donated its body to science to find out why. When sectioned, the blade showed perfect crystal structure in every way the experts could determine.

Similarly some, not all, medieval arrowheads have been found to be of a quality that was very difficult to replicate for testing on armour today. When there was no other way of shaving or winning a battle, those fields of technology attracted the calibre of people who would now be in NASA, the law or merchant banking today. That is two out of three wasted, in my opinion, and I hear some people have doubts about NASA too.

Repeated impact or flexing can produce fatigue. A few decades of snapping the hammer of a percussion-cap firearm with no copper cap in place can result in its fracture, and the same can happen to springs. But razors aren't stressed that way. I'm even a little doubtful whether any blades deteriorate purely because of age. I think this is more likely to occur due to abuse, or simply having been a bad razor from the day it was born. With everything from razors to houses, bad ones were made, but mostly discarded or devoted to parcel opening or something. Still, a few were laid aside in drawers, and may look in exceptional condition, now that the economics of razor collecting and manufacture make it worth bringing them out again.

You've all contributed a variable in the problem. King2011 this is a very good question.

The first thing we'd have to know is the original hardness of the blade(s) to be examined. Rockwell testing wasn't developed until 1908 and not widely used even then. Plus, someone back then would have to have said, I wonder how long the hardness will last and left them for someone in our generation to evaluate.

If you use the argument that the hardness does deteriorate, then those blades back then must have been much harder than we could get them now. We could find some volunteers to set aside some of their blades to be tested in another 100 years. And then leave them for another 100 years...and so on. It'd be an easy experiment, but none of us will be around to find out the results. The fashion of using a straight razor is coming back, but will it last as long as the first phase of straight razor shaving again? And, will anyone have the discipline to keep the samples intact or will their estates simply take the easy path and redistribute them on ebay?

There is a technical problem with hardness testing a razor blade because of the very thin edge due to the construction. The diamond point on a Rockwell machine tends to be the source of a very thin blade's fracture, if it's hard enough, making it possible that the blade will not survive the test without a chip. But that doesn't make it a bad blade either. It's a fault of the test.

A true wedge could be a better blade shape to run this testing. But, a good heat treatment, with all the variables dialed in, with proper dies to hold the hollow ground shapes of various kinds and it could be done. You'll certainly sort out a lot of blades with good heat treatment from a bunch of bad ones. The trouble with this however, is that they might all have been good shavers up to that point. A good shaving hard blade might have all sorts of internal problems and the owner would never know.

Japanese swords have this concept as a part of their legendary history. But, that is more likely a function of repeated polishing that eventually wears away the outer higher carbon steel of the composite construction of the steel billet exposing the lesser carbon material in the core.

Fatigue fractures are always a problem but Caledonian has pointed out that razors are not subject to such abuse. The fatigue noted in his percussion example may be better explained by work hardening of the percussion nipple and then fracture. There are several worthwhile discussions about dry firing weapons elsewhere.

Problems exist with the concepts of cold treatments, especially when looking at old steels. The Franks made steels that for their time, were reported to be capable of surviving a Russian winter and perhaps even more desirable than any other carbon steels of their day, including wootz. Russian winters gave the Persians fits too, not just Hitler and Napoleon.

If you think about this argument then someone must have noticed that steels subject to what I would consider ordinary cold, fractured easily or more easily than others. If you do a cold treatment on steel, and there was retained austenite in the material, that will be kicked over into untempered martensite, a more brittle phase. This implies that the Franks understood heat treatment better rather than necessarily making a better steel, but a "clean" steel, if that's what they were making, also has less inclusions to generate fracture points. As in our sample problem with razors, there aren't many Frankish swords available to test.

From a thermodynamics perspective, a higher order crystalline structure like martensite should have a degradation form over time (tending toward disorder). I suspect that would have to be measured in 1,000 year intervals. Aging is a real effect, even planned for, in some materials. This can be seen in some of the maraging steels, or precipitation hardening steels and high alloy structures. Aging improves the material. But those are all outside the concern of this discussion as they would not be suitable steels for razors as they are generally low carbon alloys not subject to typical heat treatments that we are discussing.

I'll take a deep breath now.

First thing that pops into my mind is an '03 Springfield, vintage Winchester Hi-Wall or model of 1894 lever action. Still in service and holding together with smokeless powder loads. I'm no metallurgist but based on old Sheffields and Swedes I've honed up I don't think there is a significant deterioration of the properties of vintage steel, if there is any at all.

I used Wade & Butcher, which is older than 100 years. It gives excellent shave, leaves skin smooth as child's. Nowaday I use razor which is approx.90 years old, the same fine result. A lot of men from this forum use 100 and 100+ years old razors. I had two modern razors, don't want to name producers. They are well known razor makers from Europe, their products costed me around 200 $ each. One I was lucky enough to return back to the shop, second is still with me. It is very beautiful but useless for shaving purposes. And no way even to compare with 100+ years old W&B.

There was a very interesting article in a knife magazine { i think it was Knives Illustrated} early this year about a new "groundbreaking technique of aging steel". The author tested a wide variety of blades and put forward that most improved in performance with age. Some of these he owned and had originally tested a few years before, and so was able to repeat the same tests on the same blades and found different results. i have some knives i have used for over twenty years {one for over thirty} and they still perform beautifully. Honestly could not say if they have improved, but certainly have not deteriorated.
As Mike said, Japanese swords are also a great example. i have been fortunate enough to handle and use some over 200 years old and they are magnificent today.
i know razors are different animals to knives {making both - believe me i know } and swords, but steel is the common ground. If it starts out treated properly and is cared for, performance should definitely not deteriorate and may improve.
Sharp Thinking.
Adam

Originally Posted by Zelenbakh

I used Wade & Butcher, which is older than 100 years. It gives excellent shave, leaves skin smooth as child's. Nowaday I use razor which is approx.90 years old, the same fine result. A lot of men from this forum use 100 and 100+ years old razors. I had two modern razors, don't want to name producers. They are well known razor makers from Europe, their products costed me around 200 $ each. One I was lucky enough to return back to the shop, second is still with me. It is very beautiful but useless for shaving purposes. And no way even to compare with 100+ years old W&B.

It is true that craftsmen in general have gained a better understanding of their processes by the development of tests, such as the Brinell scale. The trouble with objective testing is that hardness, to take but one example, is only one of the qualities that make an effective razor. I don't believe anybody makes steel as hard as glass, and surgeons still use small blades of obsidian, a natural glass, for light duty work which requires greater sharpness. But this sharpness of any glass is short-lived, for its brittleness makes it scratchable by a hard steel point. It may, for example, be better for the edge-holding qualities of a steel blade if the edge (quite toothy if we look microscopically enough) can be laid over by friction, and straightened up with the strop. I don't know any quantitative measurement for that.

The traditional Japanese sword is perhaps a misleading example. The ancient Japanese, and those who still use the same tamahagane steelmaking process, most ingeniously solve the problems of a primary steelmaking process almost identical to black Africa's, which was incapable of producing a good sword steel without much further work. The swordsmith laminated excessively soft and excessively brittle steels together to make a bar of layers so thin as to function like a homogeneous steel. Good blades can be made this way, but they also chose to laminate the blade from two steels, the softer one being inserted in the back of a hard envelope and edge.

I have a sword which is probably fourteenth century, and may have been made while the Black Prince was winning his battles against the French, although I acquired it in Second World War military mounts. The snag (for at the price there had to be one) is that the core steel has become exposed in places, by centuries of occasional repolishes. It isn't, in most such cases, bad steel, and could have been quite satisfactory, I believe, with an edge simply welded to softer steel which it nowhere enclosed.

Cold produced by climatic conditions is nowhere near as great as that used in cryogenic treatment today, and I think the analogy is a false one. It is known, though, that steels become more brittle to shock loads in very cold weather. Alexandre Dumas has the aging d'Artagnan break the sword he has carried all his life, by dropping it on the flagstones on a cold morning in the Louvre.