Archeology of Hand Tools

[Quenchcrack]

Check out this site: http://www.davistownmuseum.org/TDMtool.htm

A very nice, short history of metallurgy and lots of good stuff on ancient hand tools. Of course, these old tools look pretty modern to us old Geezers..... :D

[Ten Hammers]

Bob, thanks for the link. I'm still somewhat confused about Bessemer after reading it but I think I'll now have the motivation to look further.

Regards,

Ten

[Shane Stegmeier]

Bessemer is simple:-)

Melt a huge amount of ore, dump it into a tundish, drop a couple oxygen lances into it, blow pure oxygen into the load (Impressive and scary... which burns out all of the impurities, like carbon, sulfur, and phosphorus:-) then throw in your alloying packets, roll the tundish to the job and pour your steel.


The scary thing is you can do it on a small scale if you are crazy:-) or have LOTS of safety equipement ready.


(Atleast that is what I think I remember:-)

[Quenchcrack]

Actually, Bessemer used compressed air. When large quantities of Oxygen became available, the Basic Oxygen Furnace was created. It is simlar to the Bessemer Converter but much faster and hotter. The rapid oxidation of the iron raises the temperature of the iron considerably. After blowing your heat, you must do something about all the dissolved oxygen you now have in your iron. You must add silicon or aluminum to combine with the oxygen and form little silicates and aluminates. This will give you a sound ingot. Failure to kill the steel will result in the oxygen eating up all of your alloys and an ingot full of holes.