Really old Firmer Chisels -- What is this steel?

[Luke Dupont]

I was curious, what steel was used before O1 became prevalent?

I've got a really old firmer chisel that I love, marked Sheffield. Recently, I bought a few more on ebay.

All of these I'm guessing were pre 1900's or very early 1900's. Granted, I'm no expert on dating tools.

The thing that stands out to me, besides the superb balance and form factor, is the steel. This stuff is awesome.
It takes a keener edge, and sharpens way easier than modern steels, yet the edges don't seem to degrade noticeably faster (granted, I haven't tried sharping them at really low angles for paring and comparing edge retention). The edges have never rolled in use. So I can't say they're noticeably softer. But man, even when using a diamond stone, I can flatten the backs of these things so much easier than modern steels.

What would you guess these are made from? Just simple, high carbon steel akin to 1095 or something?

[Mel Fulks]

I’m guessing crucible steel or cast steel ,think they are the same. Lot of those are 1830 s.

[Luke Dupont]

I’m guessing crucible steel or cast steel ,think they are the same. Lot of those are 1830 s.


Ah yes, some say "Cast Steel" on them.
Is this different from modern simple carbon steels like 1095, etc.?

[Mel Fulks]

Yeah ,different. But I’ve forgotten how. Lots of old threads here about old and new steels. One thing I like about the old ones is that slick
waxy feel . Butcher was one of the best known brands

[Mel Fulks]

I do remember it had to be made in small batches.

[Scott Winners]

My kid the certified welder and certified welding inspector will be home for a few weeks starting this weekend. I will show the child some of my vintage stuff stamped "sheffield" and ask what it is. I am not enamored of edge retention of vintage steel that I own in KD hickory, but they can take a real nice edge in a big hurry.

[Rafael Herrera]

The tool steel used in the 18th and 19th century was crucible steel, aka cast steel. It was still used in the 20th century, but by then it had become obsolete and mostly replaced by other steels.

It appears to have been an artisanal process, as documented by this video from the 40s, nowhere near the scale of the modern industrial processes already in wide use even in that period. You'll see there why it's called cast steel. This stuff built our world though.

https://youtu.be/q-BVuQZSm08

[Jim Koepke]

Often, due to the cost of "cast steel," it was laminated to a softer steel. This made these tools easier to sharpen since the actual working part of the edge was thin and most of what was being abraded by the stone was softer steel.

jtk

[Edward Weber]

A 100 year old chisel stamped Sheffield is very common, there were dozens upon dozens of tool makers at that time, Just like the greater New England area here in the U.S.
Many of these tool makers bought steel from other makers, some made their own. Knowing exactly what the composition of the steel is may be lost to history, just as some of the manufacturers were.
You could go to the extent of getting it tested but it may not help identify the maker only the steel. If you know the maker you might find out their particular process but knowing only Sheffield just gets you in the general area.
Researching old tools can be fun and frustrating.

[John C Cox]

Luke,

Most manufacturers don't use O1 steel. Even now, many chisels use some flavor of water hardening steel.

Anyway...

The reason you're getting vaguish answers to your question is that the specific composition of the steel could vary somewhat unpredictably from melt to melt due to the ore supply and smelting practices. Cast Steel improved the uniformity of batches significantly over the old Blister steel, and gave them better control over carbon content, but alloying elements weren't well understood, and could vary a lot between melts.

As such, most places making stuff out of steel had tons of people on staff testing their steel and sorting it for various uses by grain structure, carbon content, and it's behavior in test forgings. Most of the tool making shops prior to the 1930's made a tremendous variety of things as a way to use up the natural variation within the steel they bought. So for example, Butcher made everything from razors to pocket knives to pliers and other consumer products.

They also tended to buy huge lots of steel, entire melts which could be 20-50 tons, when they received "Good stuff," as a way to reduce variation in their products. As a reference, Japanese smiths still do that, where they have multiple entire career's supply of blade steel coming from one melt, and it gets sold to another smith as part of his "retirement." There was word that Lie Nielsen found a good lot of A2, bought a gigantic stack of it, and has been making their chisels and plane irons out of that same stock for years now.

Companies like Sorby came out of the cutlers world, and so they made various edge tools from scissors and hand shears to axes, knives, chisels, and razors. Pocket knives and shears would use up the stuff thar had lower carbon contents while chisels got better stuff, and razors generally got the highest carbon and finest grain structure steel.

That said, the steel in high quality, old chisels generally behaves like a fine grained, high carbon (1-1.2%), low alloy, water hardening steel sort of like 1095 or W1. Cheaper "value" lines probably had poorer grain structure and lower carbon content. Some manufacturers may have "lucked out" and bought huge batches of steel that would oil harden.

[Mike Henderson]

If you want to dig into the history of steel, a very good 2-volume set of books by K.C. Barraclough are available. The set is titled "Steelmaking Before Bessemer". Volume 1 is "Blister Steel: The Birth of an Industry, ISBN 0904357538, and volume 2 is "Crucible Steel: The Growth of Technology", ISBN 0904357643.

I bought the set a long time ago and I think the cost of the books is fairly high today. You may be able to get them through your library.

I have a bunch of additional books on the history of steelmaking, if anyone wants more.

One on more modern issues in steel is "And the Wolf Finally Came, The Decline of the American Steel Industry" by John P. Hoerr, ISBN 0-8229-5398-6

Mike

[Tom M King]

I never knew, or bothered to try to figure out what Sheffield Steel is, but I like it. To me, it seems like it's between 01 and W1, but closer to 01.

[Mike Henderson]

Sheffield is just a location, not a grade of steel. Sheffield was known for good steel in the early days of steel, but that's it.

Mike

[Rafael Herrera]

It has to be noted that in the 19th and previous centuries there was only very limited knowledge of the actual composition of matter, they had no concept of atoms and molecules. What they had was a lot of empirical knowledge, and they kept that closely guarded.

Sheffield was THE main source of tool steel for the USA up until the late 19th century, up until then there was no American tool steel production at an industrial level, bupkis.

My understanding is that crucible steel was produced in Sheffield from ores imported from Sweden. Their expertise was in the production of this material, and if the fitness of the surviving tools we are so fond of is any indication, they were very good at it. The comments above indicating that they didn't have control of their production is probably incorrect. It makes no sense for these companies to be importing ore, processing it and then have a bunch of people test the steel to see what they could use it for.

Another point, the producers of steel were not the tool makers themselves. The toolmakers purchased the tool steel raw materials and made their cutting tools out of them. The expertise of the toolmaker was in the forming and shaping of the tool and the heat treatment. Anybody can bang on a piece of steel, it's a completely different story to be able to harden and temper it consistently to produce a usable tool.

This is an interesting book regarding the history of the steel trade between the UK and USA, preview available. Sheffield Steel and America. A Century of Commercial and Technological Interdependence 1830-1930 By Geoffrey Tweedale (https://www.google.com/books/edition/Sheffield_Steel_and_America/Nfk8AAAAIAAJ).

[Robert Hazelwood]

It's very simple high carbon steel, water hardening. Simple meaning not much in there besides iron and carbon. Pretty similar IMO to Hitachi White #2, though usually tempered a bit softer (Rc 60 or 61 instead of 63).

They are about as hard as modern steels, but have no extra abrasion resistance from added elements like chromium or vanadium. That's why you can flatten the backs so easily. It's also why they will wear more quickly in use, but they usually compensate for that by being very unlikely to micro-chip as they wear- they keep a smooth edge all the way until its ready to resharpen (which is very easy to do).

Because it must be quenched in water, it's subject to warping and cracking. So you have a fairly high reject rate from a production line, and even the ones that aren't rejects will need some extra labor to true everything up. Oil, and especially air hardening steels will move and crack much less, so you can do more of the shaping and finishing prior to heat treat.

[Luke Dupont]

Wow, as always, I'm impressed with the depth of knowledge here.

I also had no idea there were books on the subject. I may check those out!

Anyway, I have always favored simple steels, but my experience with these chisels just drives home the point even more for me.
I'm sure that additives make a steel slightly more abrasion resistant and therefore longer lasting, and make it easier to quench without warping, etc...
But, when the end product is concerned, you're trading just slightly more edge retention for a 3-4X easier time sharpening and grinding, and the ability to take a really screaming good edge. The slight edge retention gained at the cost of several times the ease of sharpening and touching up the tool, is a net negative by and large for many modern steels in my book, especially when it comes to chisels, which one easily take to a stone or strop without interrupting one's workflow (I appreciate edge retention somewhat more in planes, which require setting up again before returning to work).

These things are just so easy to sharpen even in comparison to O1. I'm truly impressed.

I'll have to try some nice Japanese white paper steel chisels too, at some point. I have the feeling I'll be quite fond of them.

[Larry Frank]

It is really a shame that we are left to guess what grade and composition of steel is used in various tools. The descriptions given above in posts and in most advertisements for current tools are pretty useless. In addition, we typically know nothing about the heat treatment.

[John C Cox]

Yeah, well, specific alloy and heat treatment is generally held pretty close to the vest under "Trade secret." It wouldn't be hard to get some alloy info if somebody had an XRF or Arc Spark at work... It won't tell you carbon content or grain structure, but it's at least a start.

My experience with the high quality chisels of yore - I'm talking about octagon bolster stuff that's over 100 years old now... I'm not sure I'm convinced that the steel itself is "Better." I do believe that the older drawing out process produces a much more favorable grain orientation versus the new hot forging process - which can extend the cutting life of the "same" alloy and hardness well over 4x.

The main thing I came up with is that it seems easier for me to produce an edge that wears "Normally" vs rolling or chipping.

Of course, that sounds pretty obvious when you say it out loud, that if the edge doesn't fail prematurely, it's useful cutting life is a lot longer.

It took me some time to sort out sharpening procedure to eliminate edge damage issues causing chipping and rolling. Once past that hurdle, I found that the "First quality" modern brands held up as well as the old stuff. Modern cheap stuff not so much, but cheap is cheap... It's not made to maximize performance, but rather to minimize cost and warranty.

[Mike Henderson]

As Rafael Herrera noted above, chemistry had not developed sufficiently until about mid to late 1800's for makers to know what was in the steel they were making. The big problem was sulfur which made steel "hot-short" meaning that it was not malleable when red-hot. The iron ore from Sweden was low in sulfur.

When Bessemer was developing his process, he used low sulfur ore and had good results. Then, he licensed the process to others and they used higher sulfur ore and had serious problems. It took Bessemer a while to understand the problem but he eventually did and the process really took off. If chemistry had not developed to the point where it did, Bessemer may not have been successful with his process.

There's also a problem known as "cold-short" and it's often caused by excessive phosphorus in the ore.

In the early days of industrial production of steel, sulfur was a serious problem - not from sulfur in the ore, but from sulfur in the coal that they were using to heat the ore.

Mike

[Warren Mickley]

I have gradually switched to all cast steel chisels over the last dozen years. I like English chisels made before 1850. They have three great qualities: They are long lasting, sharpen very quickly and easily, and obtain a fine edge.

[Rafael Herrera]

Got this in the mail today. A 1/4" beveled Ward & Payne chisel, boxwood carving pattern handle, very thin bevel lands (compare with the pencil tip). It's about 3.5" at the bolster. It was the right price. This is my first W & P chisel, it's been highly recommended by admirers of old Sheffield steel. It's not a miracle steel, but it's really well made. Looking forward to giving it a good sharpening.

472332472333

[Mel Fulks]

Yes ,early steel was hard to make. Things some kept as trade secrets eventually leaked out. Crucible steel was made in small batches.
That is gone, but there are still many of the chisels around. Some good workmen say an expensive type of new steel is better ,I hope so
considering the cost. It’s OK to consider cast steel “second best” but it is not helpful to dismiss it while many are buying inferior new stuff
at high prices with little knowledge of what is available at a low prices. At yard sales I bought lots of old good quality chisels for as little as a
50 cents. In employments anyone who borrowed a chisel from me raved about their high quality.

[Jack Dover]

Yeah ,different. But I’ve forgotten how.

It's basically a high-carbon steel free from other alloying metals that naturally occur in the iron ore. It has the properties OP described, like good edge retention at lower angles and softer temper. It feels "sharper" than alloyed steels (esp. Cr-Va), probably has something to do with crystalline structure. But also it has downsides, like lower rust resistance (if they rust they're badly pitted, very badly pitted), lower abrasion resistance (a con and a pro at the same time) and it was expensive to manufacture.

There used to be a member on this forum who was very knowledgeable on the subject, too bad he's not active on forums anymore.

[John C Cox]

My conclusion over a lot of testing is that the old, good stuff can be excellent, but it's not guaranteed to be so. It could be a dud, or it can also be damaged/abused and rendered no better than scrap. You don't know what you get till you buy it and test. I've got a nice Marples 7/8" square neck bevel edge chisel that doesn't hold an edge right because some fool messed up the heat treatment on the last 2" of the chisel. Yay!

That leads me to the second subject... Sharpening and prep. As an example, just this week, a brandy-new Chinese made Buck Bro's 3/4" chisel pared 16.5x more wood after a full prep including back prep vs just sharpening it out of the package in my head to head testing... And the same sharpening angle and unicorn prep was used. Wood by Wright's huge chisel testing showed differences of 10/1 in edge life on some chisels by simply changing from 20 to 30 degree bevels.

I'm not saying go out and buy this or that magic solution. My testing has shown me that that sharpening and prep can't turn a pig into a jewel, but if the underlying steel quality is good, it can make a gigantic difference in performance. It can overwhelm advertiser's assertions about their magical materials.

[Charles Guest]

The inconsistency in steel attributes across a too large collection of chisels would drive me bonkers (an admittedly short trip). Some seemingly too hard, others too soft, some "just right" whatever that means. As long as they're decent, all I want is a consistent experience at the stones and in use. My pea brain couldn't keep up with a couple dozen or more bench chisels, each different in some presumably material way or they wouldn't have been purchased in the first place. I don't see how having that kind of kit adds value to the practice of the craft.