Shear Steel and Mammoth Ivory

[Christopher P.]

Nice little EDC, 2.5 inch blade, 5.5 inch overall. Water quenched with a light ferric etch.

[Jmercier]

Very nice! Just because i dont have the info available off hand, what's the difference between shear steel and blister steel? Theyre' materials that i'd love to work with sometime.

[Christopher P.]

Blister steel is what you get when you carburize wrought iron, it comes out of the furnace with blisters on it, hence the name. Stack and weld, and you get shear. Stack and weld again, and you get double refined shear... once more for triple refined. All 4 grades were available in colonial America, used for different cultery needs, and often heavier tools would have a welded shear edge and a WI body. A farmer might get his axe "steeled" every season with a new blister or shear bit as the old one wore out. Razors would use triple-shear, as it had a more homogenized carbon content throughout, and fewer impurities, important in more precise tools.

[Finnr]

Stack and weld the blister as per : Tilt Hammer - Crucible Steel
Finnr

[ThomasPowers]

Don't forget the "Double Blister, Double Shear" too!

"Steelmaking before Bessemer, Vol1 Blister Steel, Vol 2 Crucible Steel" goes into great detail on the differences and how they were made.
(This is why I burst out laughing in "Pirates of the Carribean I" when the fellow was going on about "folded steel" as the cooks' knives were probably shear steel and so "folded" as well. If he wanted to be fancy he should have stated the sword was *crucible* steel! (of course you would't use a colonial blade in a presentation sword---you'd use a good imported Sheffield blade!))

My question is: Where did you find the shear steel? I need some for some historical pieces!

[Christopher P.]

Ric Furrer welded up a bar at Harley's a couple years ago, and I got to keep some by his leave. I am in the process of making a pile of blister from some of your old watertower, Thomas, that Adlai sold me last year... I have a big project requiring this stuff coming up, and only 6 months to do it in.

[ThomasPowers]

Ric said it blistered real well when we tried a piece at Quad-State the year he did the "3 ways to make Steel" demo.

Is it working well for you? I moved about a ton out here with me---very expensive scrap!

[Bentiron1946]

Did any of you read Moby Dick? Remember when Ahab gave his razors to the blacksmith to put an edge on the harpoon for Moby Dick? I guess that would be "steeling" the harpoon.

[Christopher P.]

So far, so good... but I'm in the middle of a furnace rebuild after my ol'faithful of the last 2 years crapped out on me (too thin a shell, slumped, and no opening in the back for longer pieces... time for a new one). I scored a couple propane tanks, have one half done for a horozontal forge, and have another for a dedicated melting furnace set vertically, both plumbed for running either blown propane, or waste oil.

Hopefully I'll finish the new forge over the weekend and get cookin', and then get my wad of shear welded up in the next month or so. I have to go to Oregon next month, and I'm running a BSA High Adventure camp in August. Busy busy busy.