Old plane irons..

[Michael Gibbons]

What type of steel or iron was used in early ( 18th century) planes? Seems that if the material wasn't as high tech as our new stuff, they'd be sharpening alot more often.

[Bob Noles]

Isn't the power of marketing amazing ;)

[Randal Stevenson]

A BIG part of the reason for more resharpening was more USE. A prime example is the story of Sister Babbit (spelling?). In the 19th century, she invented the circular saw blade. That and electricity (pre that, it was cabinetmakers shops powered by waterwheels and such) was probably the biggest reason our planes blades aren't a lot smaller. (tailed tools)

Blacksmiths and metalurgy was still pretty good back then (look at some of the Japanese swords, chisels, etc, OLD techniques)

[Stephen Shepherd]

The early blades were made largely of wrought iron (hence the name plane iron) with a veneer of steel forge welded to the back side.

The reason they did this some say is economy, I however feel that it was they could harden these much harder than if they were made of solid steel.

These are easy to sharpen because most of the metal is soft iron and only the thin veneer of steel.

I am not sure that any modern plane blade can not be hardened to that extent without being brittle and subject to breaking.

Stephen

[Mike Henderson]

For most of mankind's history good steel was hard to make and expensive. Most ferrous metal was iron, called wrought iron because it was hammered as part of the refining process. The difference between steel and wrought iron is that wrought iron has very little carbon while steel has enough to allow it to harden with a heat treatment. Wrought iron cannot be hardened with heat treatment

The first major step toward making steel in a systematic manner was the cementation process, known as "blister steel", developed about 1600. Look it up on Wikipedia for more information. Blister steel was not very uniform and a better process, known as the crucible process, was developed by Benjamin Huntsman in about 1740. Much later (late 1800's), Bessemer developed the process known by his name, and while it allowed mass production of steel it did not produce very good steel. Shortly after Bessemer's process, the basic open hearth process was developed which produced better steel but not generally good enough for tool use.

So most of the steel used on 18th and 19th century tools was made by the crucible process, and usually called "cast steel" because the steel was liquified (melted) in the crucible.

The process of making crucible steel was long and expensive so the crucible steel was expensive. Because of this, things like plane blades were not made completely of crucible steel. The crucible steel was used for the edge and was "laid on" or forged welded to the rest of the blade, which was made from less expensive wrought iron.

Stephen Shepherd and I have communicated about this issue and have different points of view. He believes that the blades were laminated for performance reasons - that the laminated blade allowed the maker to harden the steel more than could be done with an unlaminated blade, similar to the way Japanese chisels are made today.

I don't agree with his position. First, the edge steel in antique western laminated blades is only moderately harder than a modern western chisel or plane blade. If it was as hard as a Japanese blade or chisel, the edge would chip and fracture just like Japanese blades do.

Second, the crucible steel was expensive and our ancestors were business people who needed to be cost effective. Making a laminated tool required more labor but it saved on the cost of materials. As long as the maker could produce a laminated tool at lower cost than an unlaminated tool, they made laminated tools. As soon as good steel got cheap enough, the makers transitioned to non-laminated tools.

Finally, if lamination provided an advantage in western tools, we'd have people making laminated tools today. LN, for example, would likely produce a laminated chisel since they can charge a premium price for their products.

We don't appreciate how difficult it was for our ancestors to make good iron and steel. They had no way of analyzing the melt to determine what was in it, and depended upon experience and using the exact same ore, flux, and (as far as possible) process. But it was a hit or miss process. As late as the mid 1800 the US amory was complaining to steel makers that they were not getting steel that was consistent from shipment to shipment, and thus were having difficulty using it in weapons.

My own belief is that we are the beneficiaries of "survival of the fittest" - that our ancestors scrapped the worse tools and only passed the best down to us. The idea that our ancestors produced better tools than we're able to, with the benefit of 200 years of science, engineering and testing, just doesn't make any sense.

Mike

[Jim Koepke]

My own belief is that we are the beneficiaries of "survival of the fittest" - that our ancestors scrapped the worse tools and only passed the best down to us. The idea that our ancestors produced better tools than we're able to, with the benefit of 200 years of science, engineering and testing, just doesn't make any sense.

Mike

I think the lesser quality tools also were lost to being sharpened all the time and worn away.

As craftsmen had to make money with their tools, spending time to sharpen them was not a paying job. The makers of lesser tools were likely not able to sell as many of the tools as the quality tool makers. So we also have survival based on numbers and quality.

Quality gave a tool the ability to be sharpened less, so less likely to be worn down to dust. Which then earned it respect so it was not allowed to turn to rust.

jim

[Stephen Shepherd]

I don't believe that the Japanese could make the quality of steel that came out of Europe and America in the nineteenth century. And I am not sure that cast or crucible steel is available today to make the comparison.

But the old laminated Western irons are harder than modern blades, I have no issue with stuff being used up both good and bad, that did happen. I have had old planes sharpened up to the hole in the blade. And many old irons were scraped for the war effort.

Laminated blades were available after solid steel blades were on the market and continued for decades until the early 20th century when they quit making laid blades.

Stephen

[Mike Henderson]

Let me address your points one at a time.

When I make comparison to Japanese chisels, I'm referring to modern Japanese chisels made from modern steel. I can easily assure you that modern Japanese made steel is far superior to steel that came out of Europe and the United States in the 18th and 19th Century.

We have quite a bit of cast steel (crucible steel) available to us today in the form of laminated tools - any tool with the words "Cast steel" on it.

The quality of crucible steel was not really matched until the development of the electric furnace in the early 20th century (first US electric furnace in 1907). But crucible steel was not immediately replaced by electric arc furnace steel and continued to be used for quite a long time.

The quantity of crucible steel declined starting about 1920 (if I recall correctly) and the last crucible furnace closed in the 1960's.

It was probably not until the 1930's that good tool steel really got down in price. Prior to that there could have been a cost advantage in laminating a tool, as was done with those thin Stanley Bailey irons. This would especially be true because the forge welding was done by machine so the extra manufacturing cost was probably not that high - material costs would have been the primary driver.

BTW, for those interested in history, here's (http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=940CE2DA173DE733A25753C3A9609C946497D6CF&oref=slogin) an article from the NY times of about 1905 about steel production (may require free logon to NY Times site).

Mike

[Stephen Shepherd]

As for the first point, I was comparing old and new and that probably wasn't fair, you are comparing new to old and I don't know but the quality of traditional steels i.e. E v W is appreciable. I don't know if I addressed that point.

I realize that there is a lot of cast steel around but I don't want to waste an old tool to make a new one. Some are solid cast steel and usually marked, I think they were proud. Some only have laid on blades, the remainer of the tool being wrought iron.

I also think the grain feature of wrought iron contributes to the overall characteristics of the blade not only with manufacturing but also in use. I think it can dampen more than other metals and the grain is alway oriented along the axis of the tool.

I only use tools with steel blades and most of those are laminated cast steel blades, I do have some tool steel laminated in wrought iron (new made). The new ones are fine and they were hardened and tempered. I am going to have the blacksmith harden them in brine and not draw the temper, because they are not as hard as the old tools.

People keep saying modern steel is better, I am not convinced.

Stephen

[Mike Henderson]

If old steel was better, we'd have people collecting it to make modern precision tools and equipment.

Give the scientists and engineers a break. Do you really think we've learned nothing in the last 200-300 years?

Mike

[Stephen Shepherd]

Give the scientists and engineers a break. Do you really think we've learned nothing in the last 200-300 years?



Apparently violin makers haven't learned nothing either. No I give scientists and engineers a break they do have tools with softer steel holding harder carbide 'welded/brazed' to their working end. Now what does that remind me of?

Stephen

[Mike Henderson]

Don't confuse science and art. Metallurgy is a science and has made great strides in the last 200 to 300 years.

Mike

[Stephen Shepherd]

Because that would include the time period under discussion. Since they quit laminating blades 90 odd years ago and not producing good steel, you are right.

What strides have been made, carbide was around in 1865, Stainless steel, 1917 (doesn't hold much of an edge), I am sure there are others?

I know that some people would argue with you about metallurgy not being an art, Damascus, the iron work of Samuel Yellin, metallic pigments in oil paints used by the Masters, silver on photographic plates.

300 years ago they were the same thing called Alchemy.

Stephen

[harry strasil]

I have to agree with Stehpen on the old laminated (laid on) edges on planes and chisels, they are far superior to modern ones, they tend to hold an edge longer.

That time was the pinnacle of hand tool making and they had it down to a science meaning, they had very usable tools that filled the needs of craftsmen who actually used the tools to make a living, and in my opinion there is little one can do to improve on something that is about as perfect as it can get.

[Mike Henderson]

I have to agree with Stehpen on the old laminated (laid on) edges on planes and chisels, they are far superior to modern ones, they tend to hold an edge longer.

That time was the pinnacle of hand tool making and they had it down to a science meaning, they had very usable tools that filled the needs of craftsmen who actually used the tools to make a living, and in my opinion there is little one can do to improve on something that is about as perfect as it can get.
As I've said before, if you believe that we, as toolmakers, have not progressed beyond the 18th century, I don't know what else to say. It defies logic.

Mike

[Stephen Shepherd]

As I've said before, if you believe that we, as toolmakers, have not progressed beyond the 18th century, I don't know what else to say. It defies logic.

Mike

Lets see, I know a bit about logic, both informal and mathematical and if we are talking logical possibilities, does it defy empirical possibilities, logical possibilities (all A's are A), and that is what logical means. What part of logic has been defiled, I mean defied?

As tool makers have we progressed, I don't know they still used knapped obsidian blades for brain surgery.

Stephen

[Larry Williams]

Tool steel is relatively simple stuff. The main ingredients are iron and about one percent carbon. Yeah, there are some additional alloys added to nudge the properties of steel a little but what's critical is the matrix formed by iron and carbon at critical temperature. On a molecular level, it really doesn't make any difference how old the atoms are or where they came from. I'd be willing to bet there isn't any real difference between the steel Lie-Nielsen used, before switching to A-2, and a lot of the steel used in Japanese tools. While both the Japanese tool makers and Lie-Nielsen probably got exactly the same results from the hardening process, there is a difference in the tempering. I think Lie-Nielsen had it exactly right. All my Lie-Nielsen planes have their old style water hardening steel irons and I wouldn't trade them for A-2, Japanese or old laminated steel irons.

On edit: BTW, I have and enjoy using a James Cam bench gouge that's more than 200 years old. The steel in it is every bit as good and well heat treated as Lie-Nielsen's water hardening irons. The production and heat treatment of quality steel has been around a long time.

[Chuck Nickerson]

Mike - one possibility you might not be considering is scientists know more now, but no one uses that knowledge commercially for our very small runs. For instance, I read somewhere that Ron Hock gets his steel from a source in France because no US mill will produce it in the small quantity Ron buys.

[Wilbur Pan]

Hi Mike,

Just two nit picky commnets:


...the edge steel in antique western laminated blades is only moderately harder than a modern western chisel or plane blade. If it was as hard as a Japanese blade or chisel, the edge would chip and fracture just like Japanese blades do.

Not all Japanese blades have an issue with chipping. There may be a tendency for harder steel to be more prone to chipping, but there are ways around this.


My own belief is that we are the beneficiaries of "survival of the fittest" - that our ancestors scrapped the worse tools and only passed the best down to us.

By this logic, the original Oliver Machinery Co. would still be in business.

[Jim Koepke]

Mike - one possibility you might not be considering is scientists know more now, but no one uses that knowledge commercially for our very small runs. For instance, I read somewhere that Ron Hock gets his steel from a source in France because no US mill will produce it in the small quantity Ron buys.

This brings to mind a situation at my workplace. The building was built in the late 1960s to early 1970s. It is now scheduled for dismantling because of seismic concerns. There has been many bidders for the trusses and pillars in the building because that particular type of steel is no longer available.

I have no idea what is so special about the material, but it is one of the things helping to lower the cost of bringing the building down as planned. The below grade levels of the building will remain occupied while the five floors above ground are dismantled.

jim

[Dan Racette]

Mike,

I'm going to have to disagree with you on the steel issue, at least on your logic.

Old steel isn't necessarily still around and for sale because it is inferior. It might just be more expensive to produce. i.e. less profitable. I think you might be intermixing profitability with quality of steel. The older steel could be of much higher quality, yet very unprofitable to produce in mass quantities.

I think if we put our modern processes to it, and made it to that same recipes and metallurgic qualities that it used to have as in Cast Steel, put all of our modern Quality Control processes to it, we'd have something that would be very pricey, but better than what we currently buy.

I think I said this in my other Japanese West/East thread that I created, that you'd basically end up with a modern japanese plane blade, which are much higher priced, even if they aren't hand made.

All that survival of the fittest stuff isn't about quality, it's about markets and profitability, and capitalism. I think the neanderthals around here are more like guildspeople who are more about the pure pursuit of what is best, not what is best for the market.

My best friend just spent about 600 bucks restoring a Boice Crane jointer he got for 100 bucks. He could have got a fully functional jointer for 600 bucks from many dealers. But its the whole purity of the idea.

I also don't think that it's true from some other posters that the "best irons" have survived. We can't really say that for sure either! Maybe the worst ones survived because the craftspeople didn't want to bother using them!

I don't think we can be so cut and dried wikipedia historians.

Dan

[Mike Henderson]

Mike - one possibility you might not be considering is scientists know more now, but no one uses that knowledge commercially for our very small runs. For instance, I read somewhere that Ron Hock gets his steel from a source in France because no US mill will produce it in the small quantity Ron buys.
With the boutique tool makers we have now (think Bridge City Tools) and the prices they charge, they can afford to get steel and other supplies made to their order, even in small lots. I have no doubt that manufacturers can get what they want, and need, to make very high quality tools. But in any case, the steel in 18th Century tools was plain old carbon steel, with a variety of contaminants that varied from batch to batch.

The other thing is that people just do not appreciate how iron and steel was made in the 18th Century and the inability of our ancestors to control the input (they were unable to measure what was in the ore or the melt), nor the smelting process. The iron and steel that came out of the furnace was "hit or miss" (sometimes they had to throw away a batch because it was unusable). They were unable to produce the same iron or steel two times in a row. And except for sulfur and phosphorus (and maybe one or two other elements) they did not know what effect trace elements had on the metal. Late in the 19th century the iron and steel makers began to use analytic chemistry to measure the melt and began to be able to produce a more consistent product from batch to batch.

Remember that the crucible process (cast steel) wasn't even invented until the mid 18th century. [update: I checked in the book "History of the British Iron and Steel Industry" by Schubert and he says that crucible steel was not really adopted by the steelmakers until about 1770, even though it was invented earlier (page 330).] Prior to that all you had was blister steel.

Heat treating was done completely "by eye" with significant variations between batches.

Many people in our society have the attitude that "if it's old, it must be good." The reality is that we have made tremendous progress in all of the technological areas of our society, including metallurgy. Look at automobiles - a modern automobile is MUCH safer, MUCH more reliable, and has features only dreamed about by our ancestors. The same thing is true of modern metals and heat treating.

Mike

[Note, also, that the old laminated irons touted as "great" are the irons for woodies. Stanley used laminated irons in their metal planes and many people replace them with non-laminated (e.g., Hock) irons and report an improvement in performance. I maintain that if everyone used woodies, we'd have people replacing the old laminated irons with Hock irons and reporting an improvement in performance.]

[Dan Racette]

Many people in our society have the attitude that "if it's old, it must be good." The reality is that we have made tremendous progress in all of the technological areas of our society, including metallurgy. Look at automobiles - a modern automobile is MUCH safer, MUCH more reliable, and has features only dreamed about by our ancestors. The same thing is true of modern metals and heat treating.

I'm just going to have to disagree with you again.

Modern automobiles are not much safer. We have autos today that have so little mass between us and the mass that would hit us, physics proves that to be impossible. Airbags have been around since the 60's, so that isn't a really new phenomenon either, making cars of the 60's safer. They are more reliable, and more feature packed, though. But if they were to be safer, they'd be tubular frame construction, not cheap as you can get, as little metal body as possible "crumple zone" construction. They are built for profit, not for safety. If they were built for safety, they'd resemble a NASCAR or Indy car roll cage for the passenger.

I'm just saying that's not a good analogy. I'm not one to say, it's old it must be good either, though.

[Mike Henderson]

I'm just going to have to disagree with you again.

Modern automobiles are not much safer. We have autos today that have so little mass between us and the mass that would hit us, physics proves that to be impossible. Airbags have been around since the 60's, so that isn't a really new phenomenon either, making cars of the 60's safer. They are more reliable, and more feature packed, though. But if they were to be safer, they'd be tubular frame construction, not cheap as you can get, as little metal body as possible "crumple zone" construction. They are built for profit, not for safety. If they were built for safety, they'd resemble a NASCAR or Indy car roll cage for the passenger.

I'm just saying that's not a good analogy. I'm not one to say, it's old it must be good either, though.
I don't want to turn this thread into an analysis of cars, but I don't know any expert who thinks a 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s car is safer than one of today's cars.

I actually tried to pick what I thought would be a non-controversial example. If you want to discuss the relative safety of cars, perhaps it would be best if you would go start a thread on the "Off topic" forum. In the meanwhile, we can note that Dan Racette does not believe that modern cars are safer than older cars and continue the discussion of iron and steel.

Mike

[Larry Williams]

With the boutique tool makers we have now (think Bridge City Tools) and the prices they charge, they can afford to get steel and other supplies made to their order, even in small lots. I have no doubt that manufacturers can get what they want, and need, to make very high quality tools...

Mike,

Unfortunately, that's not the case. The smallest furnaces turn out a few tons of steel at a time. I doubt Bridge City has used this much tool steel in their history. Most furnaces turn out 200 to 400 tons of steel at a time.

Here's a challenge for you. I'd like to buy one of the most common steels, O-1, in the fully spheroidized bars. I want a steel mill to just pull some from their production before it goes to be "precision ground." It's normal production but I want to buy it before the last step in their production schedule. I know of a much bigger company than mine that would like the same thing. Before grinding, they cut their bars in 3' lengths but I'd even take 10' lengths. I don't want any unusual sizes or anything, in fact, the sizes I'm looking for are some of the most common sold -- 1/8" and 3/16" by 2" will work to begin with. Let me know when you find it and the size of the order I'd need to place.

[Joel Goodman]

To add to this discussion the best guns made at the turn of the century were extraordinarily accurate and rival and best much of what is produced today. A plane blade is not a rocket, thank God!

[Joe Chritz]

I am an educated amateur on steel from my days of crafting knives. The really good steels of today are only matched by forge welded damascus steels. Some other high performance cutting steels are better than anything ever around before. It is hard to work and hard to produce so it doesn't get the amount of use to be common place. Plain carbon steel is easy to work and holds a very good edge. I prefer it in a lot of areas.

I am an expert at automobile crashes (at least a couple judges have said so) and the cars of today are so much safer on every level than just 20 years ago. There appears to be less mass because there is but mass is only one factor. Anit-lock brakes, air bags and crumple zones.

Obsidian is used because of cutting geometry not because the stuff is better material. It is better for one particular thing. Cutting edges have always been a balance of hardness and brittleness.

I still like old tools because they are cool and have a lot of history. I have a rifle produced in 1906. Thinking about everything that has seen and done is kinda cool.

Joe

[Mike Henderson]

Mike,

Unfortunately, that's not the case. The smallest furnaces turn out a few tons of steel at a time. I doubt Bridge City has used this much tool steel in their history. Most furnaces turn out 200 to 400 tons of steel at a time.

Here's a challenge for you. I'd like to buy one of the most common steels, O-1, in the fully spheroidized bars. I want a steel mill to just pull some from their production before it goes to be "precision ground." It's normal production but I want to buy it before the last step in their production schedule. I know of a much bigger company than mine that would like the same thing. Before grinding, they cut their bars in 3' lengths but I'd even take 10' lengths. I don't want any unusual sizes or anything, in fact, the sizes I'm looking for are some of the most common sold -- 1/8" and 3/16" by 2" will work to begin with. Let me know when you find it and the size of the order I'd need to place.
I have no clue where you can find that steel, nor did I ever say that I could point someone to some specialized steel. I'll note that the makers of modern cutting tools are able to find steel that works for their applications, even if there are trade-offs in the choice. Their trade-off is, however, usually better than plain carbon steel.

Mike

[Marcus Ward]

Wow, this thread, ftl.

[Michael Fross]

This is a fantastic thread. We can all have different opinions,and it's great to hear them discussed.

I agree with Mike that we have the capability of producing far better steel now than in the past. I think most people would probably agree with this. The big question is do we? Does it make economical sense for the manufacturers?

Being far from an expert, I'll stop talking, and keep listening.....

Michael

[Mike Henderson]

This is a fantastic thread. We can all have different opinions,and it's great to hear them discussed.

I agree with Mike that we have the capability of producing far better steel now than in the past. I think most people would probably agree with this. The big question is do we? Does it make economical sense for the manufacturers?

Being far from an expert, I'll stop talking, and keep listening.....

Michael
Remember that the steel produced back in the 18th Century was plain carbon steel, with little control over other elements in the mix (and poor control over the amount of carbon). Almost any modern steel, including plain carbon steel, is better than the 18th Century steel, when viewed in the aggregate.

Until the development of the crucible process, steel generally meant case hardening or blister steel, neither of which is uniform in the carbon content throughout the metal (not homgeneous). I checked the book "History of the British Iron and Steel Industry" by Schubert last night. He commented that the crucible process was not used to any degree by steelmakers until about 1770, and by 1787 it was well established (page 330). The crucible process was invented in about 1740-1742.

I also believe that most of what people think is 18th Century steel is actually 19th Century steel. By then the crucible process, and the Industrial Revolution, was in full swing and steelmakers were better able to control their process. But we have evidence that even by mid 19th Century the steel produced from batch to batch was not consistent (US Armory complaint about variation between shipments of steel. And the government paid top dollar for steel.)

Mike

[Dave Anderson NH]

I am learning and re-learning a lot from this thread with its disagreements. I'm proud of the way you folks are keeping things on an even keel and are able to differ without resorting to name calling and invective. This is the way contentious topics should always be discussed.... without rancor.

[Mike Henderson]

There's a second side to making a good tool and that's in the heat treatment. Great steel with poor heat treatment equals a poor tool.

But that's a discussion for another day.

Mike

[Stephen Shepherd]

But we have evidence that even by mid 19th Century the steel produced from batch to batch was not consistent (US Armory complaint about variation between shipments of steel. And the government paid top dollar for steel.)

Mike

Mike,

What was the price of steel in the mid nineteenth century? And do you know the price of wrought iron at the time period?

Stephen

[josh bjork]

Actually, when you can find a 100 year old woody in decent shape, it probably didn't work right or at least it wasn't anyone's favorite tool because the favorite tool would have been worn out from use.

[Mike Henderson]

Mike,

What was the price of steel in the mid nineteenth century? And do you know the price of wrought iron at the time period?

Stephen
I have seen some prices in some of the books I have on the history of iron and steel. But consider the process of making cast steel:

Wrought iron made from special Swedish ore (low phosphorous) is put in an airtight stone container with charcoal and heated in a furnace for about a week. This makes blister steel. The blister steel is cut into small pieces and put into crucibles with other materials (flux) and heated until the steel melts. The output is "cast steel". So the difference in price would reflect the cost to make the blister steel (wrought iron, fuel, and labor), and the crucible steel (blister steel, fuel, and labor), plus the loss and waste in the process, plus the capital cost of the furnaces (depreciation), plus a profit for the makers.

A crucible had to be small enough that a man could pull the crucible from the furnace by himself (by hand) - see attached picture of a "puller" pulling a crucible from a furnace (note the steam coming from the wet rags wrapped around his legs and arms -OSHA wasn't around in those days). So each crucible only made about 100 pounds of cast steel - but even then, pullers were big guys. The guy who poured the iron into the mold was called the teemer and the process of pouring was called teeming (I'm going from memory here so I might be wrong or have it spelled wrong).

Additionally, in the United States for most of the 19th Century, it was generally accepted that the best cast steel was from Sheffield, so you also had the shipping cost to get the cast steel here. But the wrought iron used was local iron.

So I would expect to see cast steel be significantly more expensive than wrought iron, especially wrought iron made from domestic ores instead of Swedish ore.

Mike

[The problem of phosphorous is one that plagued iron and steel makers until the 20th Century - phosphorous made iron and steel brittle. Bessemer used cast iron from Swedish ore in his process initially because the steel made from domestic cast iron was not good. Bessemer steel was okay for railroad rails but was not acceptable for other uses because of phosphorous levels. Architects specified open hearth steel and would not use Bessemer steel. Carnegie got a contract to provide a beam for a building in Chicago (Carnegie used the Bessemer process). When the beam arrived in Chicago (by rail) it was two beams - the beam had fractured in shipment. After that, no builder would use Bessemer steel in a high rise building.]

[Mike Henderson]

Here's a quote from "Steelmaking before Bessemer" by K.C. Barraclough. He's quoting Harry Brearley, a steelmaker:

"It goes without saying that a man who can lift a pot containing sixty pounds of molten steel with a pair of thongs from a furnace below ground level at a dazzling white heat is no weakling. I say "lift" but the pot is not lifted; to call men "lifters" instead of "pullers-out" would be insulting. The actual pulling out is like Macbeth's job: "when 'tis done, then 'twere well it were done quickly"... The pot is soft and in a degree yielding... The feeling of "give" gives him the confidence to straighten his back and with an unbroken pull and swing to set the pot on the floorplates. His ends of the tongs are held together by his hands only; he might use a ring to hold them together but by doing so his sense of feeling would dissappear and the contact between him and the pot would be less intimate."

So I guess a crucible only held 60 pounds of steel. And the guy was called a "puller-out".

Mike

[Larry Williams]

...Remember that the crucible process (cast steel) wasn't even invented until the mid 18th century. [update: I checked in the book "History of the British Iron and Steel Industry" by Schubert and he says that crucible steel was not really adopted by the steelmakers until about 1770, even though it was invented earlier (page 330).] Prior to that all you had was blister steel.

Heat treating was done completely "by eye" with significant variations between batches.

Many people in our society have the attitude that "if it's old, it must be good." The reality is that we have made tremendous progress in all of the technological areas of our society, including metallurgy. ... The same thing is true of modern metals and heat treating.



Mike,

Sorry for going back and picking up one of your earlier post but it contains things you've repeated here a couple times and one thing I disagree pretty strongly with.

First, the cementation (crucible steel) process was invented by 1601 but likely earlier. K. C. Barraclough in Steelmaking before Bessemer, London: The Metals Society, c. 1984, explains that a 1574 treatise from Prague mentions a process which could be interpreted as a description of the cementation process. He also wrote that 1601 first documented use of the cementation process in Nuremburg, developed by John Nussbaum (who had spent some time in Prague). "The first plant for the production of steel by this method was built by Die Gesellschaft der Stahl Invention and Kunst (The Company of Steel Invention and Art).

His dissertation also states that by 1617 the cementation process was patented in England, though practical production of steel seems to have begun in the 1620's. And production of steel by the cementation process began in Sheffield about 1650, mostly on a fairly small scale until the early part of the 18th century.

While I agree those involved back then didn't understand steel on a molecular level, they did have a lot of practical experience. They knew what made good steel and they knew the properties that caused problems. Joseph Moxon's late 1600's Mechinick Exercises identifies Great Britain's only iron mining areas with iron ore pure enough to produce quality steel. Neither could supply the demand and Britain turned to importing Swedish iron. Those making steel were fracture testing the ingots and knew that the steel even varied in quality within ingots. Barraclough explains that Shear steel was introduced into England by John Bertram, who was shipwrecked on the North Durham coast in 1693. Within two years he was in charge of steel making at a furnace in Newcastle, from where he introduced shear steel. The making of shear steel was introduced into Sheffield in 1767. Shear steel involves cutting ingots slices according to its quality and carbon content.

They knew what grain was too. material is In a letter dated Sept. 10, 1709 (Published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London, 1710 (vol. 26) Antony Van Leeuwenhoek wrote:

" ... Iron or Steel, the fine Particles that compose which, we
can only discover in the broken Gaps or Notches of a Razor,
for instance, and the greater and courser [coarser] the Parts
are, of which those Metals are composed, as we may see in
Cast-Iron, the less valuable are the said Metals; but the finer
the Particles are, the more valuable in my Opinion will be the
Steel and Iron which they compose."

He was examining metals and cutting edges under a 200 power microscope. He also explained his sharpening and the abrasives used. This was 300 years ago and some people think a web site doing the same thing today is doing revolutionary work? I learned a few things from Van Leeuwenhoek's letter but I'll keep Dave happy and avoid comment on the value of the contemporary effort.

You mentioned the Government documents complaining of variation in steel. That's nothing new and it continues today. Someday, if you get a chance and have time to listen to a rant, ask Ron Hock how much money a small business can lose to a batch of bad steel. A couple weeks ago I was at Lie-Nielsen Toolworks and heard similar complaints from a guy hardness testing irons.

Your comment I disagree with most, though, was; " Heat treating was done completely "by eye" with significant variations between batches." I've heat treated a lot of irons. We have both a completely manual method and a computer controlled furnace. Because of the variation in steel, I'm absolutely confident I can heat treat more accurately by eye. The furnace operates according to average carbon/alloy content and an average critical temperature. Steel goes through physical changes at critical temperature that cause a dramatically visible indication at critical temperature. Heat treating by eye is doing each item one at a time, I believe problems with whole batches is more the domain of mass production.

One comment you made did make me smile. You seem to favor Japanese tools like chisels. The best of those are made with steel about as close as you can get to old-style high carbon steel. They're made and heat treated one at a time, by eye and by a skilled craftsman relying on a life-time of experience, knowledge and observation. By your arguments in this thread, one might have expected you to favor modern mass-produced Marples chisels with their modern chrome-vanadium steel that produces those folding edges I once struggled with.

[Mike Henderson]

I think you're getting the cementation process and crucible steel confused. They are very different processes and were invented at different times. In fact, Barraclough's Steelmaking before Bessemer is actually two volumes - the first on the cementation process (http://www.amazon.com/Steelmaking-Before-Bessemer-Blister-Industry/dp/0904357538/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207110767&sr=8-1)(blister steel)and the second on crucible steel (http://www.amazon.com/Steelmaking-Before-Bessemer-Crucible-Technology/dp/0904357643/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1207110767&sr=8-4). You can also check wikipedia, here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cementation_process) and here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crucible_steel).

In the east, the crucible process was invented much earlier (in India - wootz steel) but I was only addressing western steel and processes.

The main point I've been trying to make is that our iron and steel making ancestors did not have the ability to produce consistent metal, and did not know why one batch was good and another bad. The books on the history of iron and steel give many examples of enterprises which failed because they could not produce acceptable metal. Additionally, the books point out that some batches of metal were discarded as unusable - for example, the output of the blast furnace was contaminated to a degree that the pig could not be refined into wrought iron. The forgemaster simply could not explain why one batch was good and another bad. They learned from experience and tried to do the same thing when they had a good batch but often, the input changed and the same process would not work.

The example of the US Armory was just an example - the history books speak over and over about lack of consistancy in output, based on complaints in contemporaneous documents. And it makes sense that there would be lots of variation since the iron and steel makers could not measure what was in their inputs and depended upon human skill to control the process.

I appreciate your comments and views on heat treating.

I'm not an advocate of Japanese chisels. I tried them but find them too hard and fragile. I do agree that the process of making them is traditional and harks back to 18th Century methods, although the carbon steel used is modern.

Mike

[Stephen Shepherd]

What type of steel or iron was used in early ( 18th century) planes? Seems that if the material wasn't as high tech as our new stuff, they'd be sharpening alot more often.


It was very interesting, I just wondered if your question was answered?

Stephen

[Larry Williams]

Mike,

I hadn't had any experience with shear steel so making a judgment is difficult. I remedied that.

We have an old smooth plane that's part of our collection. I've never been able to read the maker's mark so the maker isn't a lot of help in dating the plane. From the features, I'd say it's from about 1800.

http://www.planemaker.com/photos/side.jpg

The plane has an iron marked "F. Stones, Shear Steel." That iron was badly pitted and it's taken all my spare time for a few days to work it down to where I the pitting was gone enough to really see what the steel is like. There's still a little pitting near the edge in one corner.

http://www.planemaker.com/photos/iron.jpg

My partner, Don McConnell, probably has the best data base of British edge tool and saw makers that exists so I asked him about Stones' working dates. He says Ken Roberts lists him as an edge tool maker in Sheffield starting in 1817. Don adds, "Saw maker and joiners' tool maker by 1821. Latest working date I currently have is 1849."

http://www.planemaker.com/photos/logo.jpg

It took a while to abrade the pitting away. After I had portions of the edge free from pitting, to take a break, I stopped several times to raise a wire edge on the iron. The flattening process and the wire edge can tell you a lot about the steel. I found no inclusions that would suggest impurities in the steel. It was even more uniform in color than the modern steels I usually work with. The wire edge was fine, crisp and uniform every time. The fineness and rigidity of the wire edge tells me the steel is very fine grained. As to hardness, it worked a lot like the steels I usually use and I would guess it would test out about RC-62/63. The laid on steel is to thin to actually do a Rockwell hardness test.

After I had the majority of the pitting removed and could get a decent edge, I put it in the plane and took quite a few shaving. The edge held up as well as any steel, old or modern, I have at my disposal. I could still shave my arm after removing about 1/8" from a 12" long piece of beech.

My impression is that this is some very fine grained good steel. I'd eagerly trade any of my Marples, Two Cherries, or A-2 edge tools I have for ones made of shear steel if this is a reasonable example of shear steel. I wouldn't hesitate to put my name on it and use it in any plane we make if I could get a supply of it.

I had a lot more to say about old and modern practices but this is already too long. I think I'll forget that for now.

[Mike Henderson]

I'm going from memory here, but what I recall is that shear steel is made from the output of the cementation process. The strips of blister steel were stacked and forge welded together to make shear steel. If it was then folded over and forged welded again, it was called double shear steel. [added note: I found this site (http://www.topforge.co.uk/Glossary.htm) which is a glossary of metal working terms.]

The problem with blister steel, and, of course, shear steel since it was made from blister steel, is that the carbon content is not homogenous - the steel has areas of high carbon and areas of low carbon. That's the reason crucible steel was developed - to make a more homogeneous steel. Our ancestors certainly thought crucible steel was better than shear steel because the industry converted to crucible steel (cast steel) fairly quickly - even though crucible steel added an additional step in the process (which would have made it more expensive).

Different subject: Our ancestors were well able to recognize good iron and steel after it was made. They had a number of tests which they could run to determine the quality of the iron and steel. The problem was that they could not produce good iron and steel consistently.

So think about the interaction between a steel maker and a user (buyer)

Buyer: "That steel you shipped me last time was terrific. I'd like to order some more."

Steel maker: "We were careful to note the ores we used, the flux, and we'll have the same artisan at the furnace. I'm sure we'll be able to deliver the same steel to you next month."

A month later:

Buyer: "What is this garbage you sent me? Did I not pay you the best price? Why did you ship me your worse steel?"

Steel maker: "We made it exactly the same way with the same ore and flux. But the furnace is a fickle mistress and did not cooperate. I'm sure we can do better with the batch we ship you next month."

Buyer: "Next month??? With this garbage I may not be in business next month. Make sure you ship me good steel or I won't be around to buy from you."

Some people might say "Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose" but it was a lot worse back then. If an 18th Century steel user (buyer) was given access to our modern steels he'd think he had died and gone to heaven.

Mike

[Wiley Horne]

Larry and Mike,

Thanks for a great thread! Hoping for even more....

Larry, that is a magnificent post you just made on the shear steel example you have in hand. Specific examples and actual data are just stunning. It's so rare.

Wiley

[Johnny Kleso]

I'm going to add my two cents...

Steel is dirt cheap these days since Bessemer process days, before them they would take small marble size pieces and hammer then on and anvil working it into a bigger piece one marble at a time..

These is lot of great steel made to day, D-2 or A-2 can shear a plate of CRS 1" thick and pop out a man hole size disk in one shot..

I'm sure you could build a die with older cast steel and do any type of a production run and have it last..

The older steel is closer to todays W-1 and 0-1 with a finer grain and takes a sharper edge...

The CPM metals (powered) are like the A-2 and D-2 but have the finer grain like 0-1 and W-1
I have not ran any tests on these CPM steels but this is what somone needs to make a blade out of and test it...

The sales Rep at Crucial says CPM V-10 is the Best WW Steel..........................................

Someone needs to buy a piece and test it...

Larry,
You should call Crucial and ask for a free test sample of harden piece of V-10 to test in a single bladed Coffin Plane, the most they can say is NO..

_________________________________
Here's a challenge for you. I'd like to buy one of the most common steels, O-1, in the fully spheroidized bars. I want a steel mill to just pull some from their production before it goes to be "precision ground." It's normal production but I want to buy it before the last step in their production schedule. I know of a much bigger company than mine that would like the same thing. Before grinding, they cut their bars in 3' lengths but I'd even take 10' lengths. I don't want any unusual sizes or anything, in fact, the sizes I'm looking for are some of the most common sold -- 1/8" and 3/16" by 2" will work to begin with. Let me know when you find it and the size of the order I'd need to place.
___________________________________________

Back in the 80s you could buy steel what ever size you wanted but you had to place a MILL RUN Order, a meer 2 Tons and 4140 was about $1.75- $2.25 a LB back them.. Most steel sellers are good with giving credit though..

There is also rolling mills that will squeeze roll your stock to any size..

If you can find someone to Water Jet to cut the parts to shape like on H&Rs you can can sell the drop outs back to the mill as certified scrap to be melted and turned around again... Must be pieces though can not chips...

[Mike Henderson]

The best evidence we have for the quality of steel made in the 18th and 19th Centuries is the decisions made, and actions taken, by our ancestors. As iron and steel making technology changed, our ancestors embraced the changes. And they only embraced a change if it allowed them to make better tools, which would contribute to their success in the market. They were rational business people. Someone who argues that old steel is better has the burden of explaining why our ancestors, who were making their decisions in the face of real business and market pressures, moved to more modern steels.

Mike

[Of course, we also need to define what "good steel" is. I define good steel as that steel which best meets the needs of the customer. That includes the total cost of ownership. So steel that lasted longer in use, say on a metal lathe, might be "better" if its additional cost was less than the cost to stop work and change the tool.]

[Michael Gibbons]

It was very interesting, I just wondered if your question was answered?

Stephen Yeah, for the most part. Though some of the stuff is over my head since I'm not a metallurgist.:confused::D Someone remind me to supply pairs of boxing gloves next time I get a question in my head that I want to ask on the Creek.:rolleyes:

[Don C Peterson]

I've enjoyed this thread and Mikes last question got me thinking...

Market decisions are not always based on the maximization of any particular end. There are many different competing ends that drive decisions, of which quality is only one.

I agree with you Mike, that modern processes and controls make more consistent steels, but I can't help but wonder if something might not be lost in that sea of consistency? Sure the old time steel was a bit iffy, sometimes being great, other times not so much. Toolmakers naturally would have preferred consistently good steel over sporadically great steel since is only takes one bad batch to ruin a reputation.

Also, producing cast steel involved more steps and initially would have been more expensive, but those fundamental processes leant themselves to automation and larger scale production which of course, brought down costs.

The result might have been an ability to produce lots of steel that was consistently good enough, but never really great. Today's fine edge tool makers seem to be able to choose from a wide variety of steels, all of which were ultimately designed for other purposes. Are there any steel makers out there that have focused on perfecting and producing steel for edge tools?

[Mike Henderson]

I've enjoyed this thread and Mikes last question got me thinking...

Market decisions are not always based on the maximization of any particular end. There are many different competing ends that drive decisions, of which quality is only one.

I agree with you Mike, that modern processes and controls make more consistent steels, but I can't help but wonder if something might not be lost in that sea of consistency? Sure the old time steel was a bit iffy, sometimes being great, other times not so much. Toolmakers naturally would have preferred consistently good steel over sporadically great steel since is only takes one bad batch to ruin a reputation.

Also, producing cast steel involved more steps and initially would have been more expensive, but those fundamental processes leant themselves to automation and larger scale production which of course, brought down costs.

The result might have been an ability to produce lots of steel that was consistently good enough, but never really great. Today's fine edge tool makers seem to be able to choose from a wide variety of steels, all of which were ultimately designed for other purposes. Are there any steel makers out there that have focused on perfecting and producing steel for edge tools?
There are a couple of problems with the belief old steel could be "great" compared to modern steel. Old steel was simply carbon steel - nothing more. Since our ancestors could not control the other elements in the steel it's possible that some batches might contain beneficial amounts of certain elements.

But since that time, we've studied the effects of various elements added to iron and steel and can produce metal with the optimum amounts for well defined applications. To assert that old steel was "better" you have to show what might have made it better (what additions, or what processing).

One could argue heat treating but even heat treating has been studied and understood to the point that boutique tool producers can do an excellent and consistent job of heat treating, even to the point of one tool at a time, if that would be necessary. I'm sure LN's heat treating of their chisels and irons is excellent, even though it's probably farmed out. Same for Hock irons.

The production of cast steel was an artisan process to the very end. Small batches of metal were made in crucibles and pulled out by a worker. The picture of the puller-out that I posted earlier was taken in the 1930's. Good steel, however, did get much cheaper, especially in the early 20th Century, which is why tool makers quit making laminated tools.

Also note when comparing shear steel to cast steel - the input to both processes was exactly the same -> blister steel made through the cementation process. To make shear steel, the plates were assembled into a faggot and forge welded, while to make cast steel required another furnace at high temperature (read "lots of fuel"), making it more expensive than shear steel. But our ancestors converted to cast steel. They obviously thought it was better. According to the web site I posted earlier,shear steel was preferred for some knife blades because the slag and the variation in the carbon content made the blade a "naturally serrated" blade, which cut certain things better (meat?). But it certainly wouldn't have been good for a straight razor blade.

There's an ingrained belief within people that old things are "good" and all things modern are taking us to the devil. But in most cases, incuding the making of iron and steel, that's just not true. That ingrained belief means our grandchildren will probably look back on our days and think things were so wonderful.

Mike

[Wiley Horne]

Hi All,

I think there is continuing confusion in this thread. Not that any person is confused, but rather that people are talking past each other. There is the steel itself, as received from the steelmaker. And there is the forging and heat treating of the tool. These are two separate subjects. At least two.

Mike keeps saying that modern steel is best--I think it'd be hard to argue him down on this point, especially if you include the Hitachi unalloyed high carbon in the mix (white steel No. 1 for example). But I am reading Larry and Stephen to be addressing forging and heat treating. Small batch hammer forging, heat-treating over a charcoal fire, and individual item tempering has been economically bypassed. However, a skilled smith doing work this way has control of the grain size, carbide distribution, and hardness parameters, and for my money can exceed the performance of similar steel stock (meaning high carbon) that has undergone the standard heat treat/tempering to, say, Crucible Service Center's schedules.

I think that the steel quality and consistency needs to be considered separately from forging, heat treating, and tempering--for light to be shed on the issues raised.

Incidentally, Johnny, I have some CPM 3V plane blades, and Bill Tindall & Phil Smith have written on these pages about their chisels made from this steel. It is indeed great stuff, provided one is willing to change over to diamond media for sharpening. It won't get truly sharp on oil or water stones. At least not on manmade water stones; one might be able to find a natural stone by hit or miss that will cut it.

Wiley

[Dave Anderson NH]

Don raises some interesting points about the economic issues involved in how and why toolmakers adopted new technologies. Bessemer Process and the electric furnace both made the production of steels by the shear and crucible process uneconomical. Shear and crucible/cast were labor intensive small batch processes suited to relatively small businesses or job shops. Bessemer and electric furnace are industrial sized processes and have been since they were commercialized. It would have been almost impossible for the small makers with the older processes to compete against the newer processes with equal or less labor and their huge batch sizes. Quality of product issues are a different matter entirely though the argument can be made that industrial process steel is probably more consistent.

This has been a great discussion., thanks to all for taking part.

[Johnny Kleso]

Search Engine dosent seem to work well here as it cant find any posts with CPM 3V in them :(

I find it hard to gauge old steel as no one has owned these cutters for the cradle.. Meaning was the steel over heated sharpening or as someone tried to reharden chisels which I have read a few times on the net...

Myself I have not found any old steel better that 0-1 that I heat treat my self in my back yard...
https://home.comcast.net/~rexmill/heat_treating/heat_treating.htm

I dont seem to get what the discussion is about, its steel not a violin hehehe

No one is going to start making old carbon steel tools when you can by 0-1, A-2 or D-2 for a dollar a pound..

Can old steel cut wood??? You Bet!

I guess I had to many years breathing the smoke after quenching tools steel hehehehe

[Larry Williams]

Hi All,

I think there is continuing confusion in this thread. Not that any person is confused, but rather that people are talking past each other. ...

Wiley,

You're right, there's a lot of talking past each other going on but it's not limited to this thread. I suspect the rep at Crucible was thinking more in terms of power tools with the "best woodworking steel" comment. For things like power jointer and planer knives? Well, maybe it's worth looking at for that use where a straight knife or even saw blade is removed, replaced and sent out for machine sharpening. I copied this from Crucible's spec sheet on CPM V10:

"Crucible engineers optimized the vanadium content to provide
superior wear resistance while maintaining toughness and
fabrication characteristics comparable to D2 and M2...
Its exceptional wear resistance and good toughness make
it an excellent candidate to replace carbide and other highly
wear resistant materials...."

I was given a D-2 chisel a while ago. Because D-2 is so difficult to machine the manufacturer makes these through an abrasive process. I'm sure the abrasives are belts from the way the chisel was dubbed from side to side on all four faces. Even with abrasives D-2 doesn't work well. I have no idea how long it would have taken to turn that chisel into a functional properly shaped chisel. A few minutes on the grinder with the only noticeable change was a dull wheel that needed to be dressed again, I knew it would take longer to fix that chisel than it would ever be worth. I can't imagine bothering to try to sharpen D-2 and we have an osculating diamond grinder in our metal shop.

One of the biggest problems we face as plane makers is that many of our customers can't or don't know how to sharpen. This is a problem with our easy to sharpen tools like bench planes. With planes like the 3/16" side beads I have on my bench right now, sharpening gets a lot more complicated and difficult. In this run of planes there are six of these and I doubt any of the irons are interchangeable. By necessity, the mortise and escapement have to be shaped by hand and they're not within a thousandth of an inch or two of each other. No machine is automatically going to shape or sharpen these. They have to be done by hand. Complicating sharpening with a difficult to sharpen steel would probably doom me to failure. I know the majority of my customers couldn't sharpen such an iron even if I managed to get it done in a reasonable amount of time.

I find it difficult to imagine anyone espousing technological Darwinism, like I've seen here, would consider working wood by hand. There are machines and then there's CNC. A couple years ago we were looking into CNC and found a machine that could reproduce virtually any part on any museum piece out there and it could make them faster than all three of us here could rough out the stock to keep the machine supplied. But where is the furniture or cabinets these machines could be turning out? I don't see it on the market. Come to think of it the sales rep who came to talk to us was on his way back to Texas after working on machine at Boeing in Wichita. Boeing uses the machine to produce fitted shipping crates for aircraft wings and such.

This thread started with Michael Gibbons asking:
What type of steel or iron was used in early ( 18th century) planes? Seems that if the material wasn't as high tech as our new stuff, they'd be sharpening alot more often.My experience with the shear steel tells me they were using pretty good stuff. It's as good as any tool steel I've used for hand tool woodworking and better than what much of that I've found in contemporary hand tools. In the beginning, I disagreed strongly with what Steven Shepherd was saying about it being better. I still disagree with his reasoning but I think the laminating process my well be involved in producing a good fine-grained steel. The shear steel I played around with is the finest grained tool steel I've ever worked with. The laminating process may be, at least partly, responsible for hammer refining the steel. I'm left thinking hammer refining steel is a very real and valuable process.

The argument has been made that modern steel is more uniform. I think uniformity can be achieved through hammer refining. However, I believe it'd be a losing proposition to start trying to hammer bars of modern steel together to overcome the variance in allowable tolerances. The critical element in the steel I buy is carbon and the specs allow a variance of 15% in carbon content. To me that's not very uniform and it's why I can heat treat steel by eye more accurately than with our computer controlled furnace. Checking an iron/carbon phase diagram I can see that this allowance translates to a difference of about 100ºF in critical temperature. Over heating steel or even holding it at critical temperature too long both burns off carbon and results in larger grain.

After reading in a 1938 text about the visible changes in steel at critical temperature, I used it for a couple years and came to trust it. I wanted to get some information out about it and wanted to explain what was happening. I asked everyone I could think of about it. Only Philip Marcou had heard about it when a long time ago he took a tool to an old blacksmith for hardening. One metallurgist I had met on the Internet was very well connected in the academic community. He was able to get the information run past some of the recognized World authorities on iron/carbon phases. Not one had heard of it before. I've since found it mentioned in a couple of the other old texts. It was mentioned but glossed over--everyone already knew about it. It's the kind of information that's lost when people start depending on averages and instruments rather than the more direct and accurate method of watching what happens.

[Johnny Kleso]

Larry,
Did you ever get the Favicon (Favorites Icon) I made you for your website working????

Last time we emailed you said you had not figuered it out yet...

[Don C Peterson]

Hi All,

I think there is continuing confusion in this thread. Not that any person is confused, but rather that people are talking past each other. There is the steel itself, as received from the steelmaker. And there is the forging and heat treating of the tool. These are two separate subjects. At least two.


Wiley, you are probably right. I know that my knowledge of steel composition and the subsequent treating processes involved is scant enough that it all seems like black magic to me...

As a user, I know I tend to attribute a tool's edge holding and working qualities more to the steel than the treatment it recieved, which is probably a mistake. But it's much easier to grasp that a tool is made from x as opposed to understanding the complexities and interplay between the material and the process it undergoes.

[Larry Williams]

Larry,
Did you ever get the Favicon (Favorites Icon) I made you for your website working????

Last time we emailed you said you had not figuered it out yet...

Well, we updated the web site. I now have someone else doing it, because I don't have time to keep up with it. When I was giving him everything for the web site I completely forgot about the favicon. I think you sent it to Don. I just checked the all my e-mail from July and I don't have it. I would if you sent it to me, I'll check with Don tomorrow.

Thanks for the reminder.

[Johnny Kleso]

I'll make a new one tomorrow if I cant find the old one..

[Wilbur Pan]

There are a couple of problems with the belief old steel could be "great" compared to modern steel. Old steel was simply carbon steel - nothing more. Since our ancestors could not control the other elements in the steel it's possible that some batches might contain beneficial amounts of certain elements.

But since that time, we've studied the effects of various elements added to iron and steel and can produce metal with the optimum amounts for well defined applications. To assert that old steel was "better" you have to show what might have made it better (what additions, or what processing).

I can think of an example that addresses this issue. Consider the traditional way of making steel for Japanese tools. (This is a vast oversimplification, and I'm sure I'll get some details wrong, but bear with me.)

Take a bunch of iron containing sand, charcoal, and some other stuff, throw it into a furnace, and burn it for three days. After the process is over, you'll have various chunks of steel. The steelmaker was able to sort through the chunks and figure out which chunks were hard/brittle, and which were soft/tough. Some chunks might be good enough to be called tamahagane, which was considered to be the hardest and rarest, and usually reserved for samurai swords. He priced and sold the chunks accordingly to tool makers. Some tool makers bought the more expensive steel to make high end (and expensive) tools using the tamehagane for extremely talented woodworkers, and others would buy the less expensive steel for user quality tools for people like me, who are not so talented. ;)

Now, I don't think that the steel makers back then could quantitate the amount of carbon in those chunks of steel, but they could identify which ones were "better". These days we can identify which additives will adjust the properties of steel to our liking. But not having this knowledge does not preclude someone from being able to identify which steel is "better". The old Japanese steelmakers may not have known the actual percentage carbon content of tamahagane, but they could sure tell when they had a chunk of it.

I think it's examples like this one that lead one to the conclusion that the old steel is better. If your thoughts about steel continuously improving were true across the board, Hitachi would be making tamahagane steel today for the production of samurai swords and high end Japanese tools, just like they make their blue and white steels. But as far as I know, they don't, and neither is anyone else. I'm sure that the composition of this steel is known, or could be known, so there's no technical reason why it can't be made.

[Mike Henderson]

What you describe was apparently common in the west, also. Our western ancestors had a great deal of trouble controlling their processes but could recognize good and bad iron and steel after it was made.

Like you, I'm sure that the tamahagane has already been analyzed and could be reproduced - and perhaps it is being reproduced. The steel that came out of those furnaces was just ordinary carbon steel. The Japanese steelmaker might select the pieces with the "best" level of carbon but it's unlikely that other elements played any significant part.

Perhaps the "secret" to the best Japanese swords lies in (1) the selection of steel with the proper amount of carbon (and perhaps layering of pieces of different levels of carbon), and (2) the forging and heat treating of that steel. From what I've read, the actual making of the Japanese sword was a very involved process requiring great skill. It may be that a skilled Japanese sword maker could start with modern commercial carbon steel and make a blade as good as (or even better than) a traditional blade. In other words, perhaps the best blades lie within the maker and not within the steel.

Mike

[An example of a "product" which required both special steel and great skill is the Damascus blade. Only wootz steel from India could make a true Damascus blade (true is as opposed to a laminated "Damascus" blade). Recently Verhoeven (http://www.tms.org/pubs/journals/JOM/9809/Verhoeven-9809.html) has claimed to have discovered the "secret" to true Damascus steel.]

[Another comment: While Japanese swords and Damascus blades were made for royalty (or samurai) by the greatest smiths without any regard to cost, chisels and irons for planes were made by smiths of lesser skill for a price sensitive market. It was simply not possible for the smith making a plane blade to spend the time that went into a Japanese sword. And in the 19th Century, most of the cast steel laminated forging was done by much less skilled labor working at machines. Some workers were quite skilled, but many were like the repair people of today who do shoddy work. People back then were the same as people of today.]

[Marcus Ward]

It may be that a skilled Japanese sword maker could start with modern commercial carbon steel and make a blade as good as (or even better than) a traditional blade.

This is true. I have a blade made from 9260 that is amazing in its durability. It's a strong tamishigiri blade and very forgiving of beginner mistakes. People think the old Katana were unable to be duplicated with modern methods but this isn't so. Modern steel can easily duplicate the durability and edge holding properties of a samurai sword if it is correctly produced. The layering process of a katana was 'invented' to make 2 lesser quality steels into one superior quality weapon, not because it was superior itself.

[Wilbur Pan]

Another comment: While Japanese swords and Damascus blades were made for royalty (or samurai) by the greatest smiths without any regard to cost, chisels and irons for planes were made by smiths of lesser skill for a price sensitive market. It was simply not possible for the smith making a plane blade to spend the time that went into a Japanese sword. And in the 19th Century, most of the cast steel laminated forging was done by much less skilled labor working at machines. Some workers were quite skilled, but many were like the repair people of today who do shoddy work. People back then were the same as people of today.

Of course, at the end of the 19th century (1876 to be exact, at the end of the Meiji era), the samurai class was outlawed, and the swordmakers were instantly out of work. For the most part, they turned to toolmaking, making plane blades and chisels instead.

I completely agree that the skill of the toolmaker plays a huge role in how good the tool is. Jacques Pepin and I can start with the same chicken and assortment of vegetables and herbs, but I can guarantee that his roast chicken will be a heck of a lot better than mine. ;)

[Mike Henderson]

Good point, Wilbur. Almost all my reading on the history of iron and steel has been of the history of Western iron and steel, and because of that, my comments tend to be about western history. I appreciate you pointing how things were different in the east.

Of course, China invented the blast furnace much earlier than the west, and invented the making of steel from cast iron long before Bessemer. And India invented crucible steel many centuries before Huntsman.

Mike

[Jim Andrew]

This is an interesting discussion, modern versus old. I think hand tools are such a small industry, compared to all the machines produced, the steel companies are just not very concerned about the small volume industry. They are making steel for the large consumers. When you consider the parts that are in tractors, vehicles, industrial machinery, some parts have very good quality material in them. Look at the number of hours you get out of modern farm equipment compared to the equipment of the 30's. Now the "good used" farm tractors on farm equipment dealers lots have 9000 hours on them. The old ones were worn out and scrapped before they went that far. And lots of user machines have 10 to 12000 hours on them. So quality steel is still out there, it's just a matter of where it is used. Jim

[harry strasil]

Off the subject maybe, but as a blacksmith, Its amazing how many young people want you to spend 2 or 3 hours with them, teaching them blacksmithing so they can go home and make a Sword that will cut thru a Machine gun barrel in one stroke. Most people today, especially the young, not matter what craft it may be, usually don't want to take the time and patience to learn the craft to start with. We are in a hurry up and make it society and the skills learned and passed down from the old to the new has suffered greatly because of this. We are in the Machine age where everything supposedly can be done very easily and quickly with modern technology, and the lessons and skills of the past are mostly gone except for a few who have taken the time to learn from the few of the past generation who did the same thing to acquire their skills. Just because its new does not mean it is better than the past. Some things yes, others no.

As an example: Hippocrates, the father of medicine had it down pretty good for his time, then it got lost when he passed, how many centuries passed before his teachings were researched and modern medicine was again reborn.

[Mike Henderson]

"The world is passing through troubling times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress." Peter the Hermit (Priest who helped organize the first crusade around 1100)

“I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on the frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words. When I was a boy, we were taught to be discrete and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly wise and impatient of restraint.” Hesiod 700BC

"In case you're worried about what's going to become of the younger generation, it's going to grow up and start worrying about the younger generation." Roger Allen

"The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young." Willa Cather

There's also a good quote from Roman times but I can't find it right now.

Mike

[Our kids are us, maybe more than we like to admit.]