Hark! all I.F.I. metallurgy enthusiasts

[SLAG]

Greetings,   I.F.I.  denizens!  

  ( especially science & metallurgy enthusiasts, on this site),

I have chanced upon a concise, highly readable, history of iron and steel manufacturing,   article on the net.

SLAG  highly recommends the following reprint.

Try,

www.popularmechanics.com/technology/infrastructure/a20722505/history-of-steel/

SLAG. 

[ThomasPowers]

Got some whoppers in there: "The Chalybes’ wrought iron contained only 0.8 percent carbon, so it did not have the tensile strength of steel."

I always though 1080 was a pretty good steel...I think they meant 0.08 percent 1008 iron...

Also the Folks in central Asia did a lot of crucible steel that wasn't wootz---read Dr Feuerbach's "Crucible Steel in Central Asia"

The use of steel in roman Europe is well documented in Pleiner's "The Celtic Sword"  and LOTS of extant blades from the early medieval times  have been give a metallographic examination showing they were steel.

Then they use Anstee's work not realizing that it's been superseded in more recent times.  We know what cable damascus looks like and the viking and Anglo-Saxon and Frankish weapons were made from welding and twisting and welding strips not rods based on the designs. (And strips are a heck of a lot easier to make by forging than "rods"!)

And again the Katanaphilia; Katana's were not particularly good battle swords as a slight variation in a cut can leave them bent or have the edge break off---(read up on why Ashi were used!)  Beautiful and excellent dueling swords but not the best ever made unless you make the definition of best to only include the areas where they excel and ignore the areas where they don't. Like "light"---it's funny that the average weight of a katana and the average weight of a european battle sword were nearly the same, but the katanas are always considered light and the European swords as heavy and clunky---perhaps it's because  the katana was THICKER than the european blade at the point of greatest thickness. (I believe it was an episode of "The Day the World Changed" that the middle aged sedentary scholar with no martial arts training nearly cut a side of beef(hog?) in two with a medieval european sword...)

"And all through the forging and folding, the wrought iron’s continued exposure to carbonaceous charcoal turned the metal into steel."    Nope sorry urban legend time!   The folding and welding DECREASES the carbon content; they start close to 2% and end up at .5 percent .

Starts to get better with Abraham Darby and Benjamin Huntsman though. Amusing how they avoid the term "coke" and use roasted coal over and over...They discus the phosphorus issue but not the sulfur issue, (why the Manganese was needed).