A Short Treatise on 18-19th Century Period Steels

[ChuckBurrows]

There were three major methods of large scale making steel in the 18th to mid-19th century when the Bessemer process was developed, which produced steel in far larger quantities with less work. Still the three types listed below continued to be used in England until at least WW 1:

1) Blister-steel aka cementation steel: Steel formed by roasting wrought iron bars in contact with carbon in a cementing furnace. It is so called from the blistered appearance of it's outer skin. To improve the quality, it was subjected to two subsequent processes, which converted it into shear-steel and cast-steel.
Blister steel was NOT a one off method for individual blades, but rather a method of making large amounts of steel - this method was developed circa the 1500's. James Hanson mentions in his Fur Trade Cutlery Sketch Book, that the bars of wrought iron used for making blister steel could be as large as 1/ 2" x 4" x 20 feet.

2) Shear-steel: Blister-steel was sheared into shorter, manageable lengths, heated, and tilt hammered to homogenize the steel which improved the quality. Several bars are welded together and drawn out. The bar is sometimes cut, fagoted, reheated, and again tilted. This may be repeated. The terms single shear and double shear indicate the extent to which the process is carried. It was widely used for blades of all types through the end of the 19th Century and on into the early 20th.

3) Cast-steel (aka crucible steel): Blister steel which has been broken up, fused in a crucible, cast into ingots, and rolled. The blocks of steel are melted in crucibles of refractory clay, and the molten metal is poured into ingot-molds of cast-iron. These are opened, to let out the red-hot ingot, which is then passed to the rollers.
The process of making cast/crucible steel was developed by Benjamin Huntsman, of Sheffield, England, circa 1745. Oddly, crucible steel at first was not greeted well by the Sheffield makers who didn't like it because it was too hard, while the French cutlers soon recognized it's qualities. The Sheffield makers even went so far as to ask the government for an embargo on the raw steel. When one sees an item from the period stamped cast steel it does not mean that the item was cast to shape, but rather that it used this type steel - most items were in fact forged and ground to make the final product.
By 1840 the English had developed the cast steel method to the point that English steel made in this way became 40% (about 20,000 tons a year - up from the 200 tons a year produced by the English using all previous methods) of all steel produced in Europe. Other steel centers of note during the period were: Germany (manganese and other trace minerals in the local ore made it a better than normal natural alloy), Spain, and Sweden. Intentional alloying of steel began in the early 1800's. In the late 1850's, the Bessemer process was developed which increased steel production immensely.

4) There is also documentation to show that pattern welded Damascus was being produced in Europe at the time as well as in India and other eastern countries. Not only were gun barrels and other parts being made of Damascus by the late 18th century, you can see via the link below Jean Jacques Perret's 1771 treatise on the Art of the Cutler for the process used in making blades of said material. Perret also mentions in his treatise that what is now commonly known as San Mai - essentially a sandwich of a steel core wrapped in a blanket of iron or low grade steel. His recommended steel for the core was German, steel which was made from an ore which includes manganese that aids in hardening.
http://damascus.free.fr/f_damas/f_hist/perret.htm

I find the Perret treatise interesting:
  1) It not only shows that such pattern welded steel was being made in Europe at the time (the methods for pattern welding blades were NEVER lost as is often touted)
  2) Perret notes that "true Damascus" aka wootz, an ancient cast steel was a different product than pattern welded.
  3) Perret notes that even then selling folks on higher quality items was a problem
  4) Perret also gives the technique for making sandwich/laminated blades - the Japanese version is known as San Mai, a term often used today to designate this type blade.
  5) And perhaps most interesting, to me anyway, is that Perret discusses the problem of "fake" Damascus - implying that the quality of Damascus blades was well known enough that folks were in fact faking it - nothing new under the sun!

[St. George]

A most excellent post, Chuck - exactly the sort of thing I like to see on this forum.

Muchas Gracias, Mi Amigo,

Vaya,

Scouts Out!

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Chuck,

Thanks for the information ... as usual, you have put in a post what more verbose writers would fill a book with

I keep a loose leaf notebook filled with info (owner's manuals of my guns, etc). Now I have to figure out how to get my computer to print the post. Then it can go in page protectors in the notebook ...

Again, thanks for the precise and abbreviated history ... although I knew some of it, I never had any documentation when I ran into a naysayer ....

[JohnR]

Copy and past to a word processor document, then print.

[WaddWatsonEllis]

Chuck,

On another thread we got into the discussion of Japanese steelmaking process.

A Japanese-American friend who had an intense Bushido and Kendo background said the the Japanese developed the 'Damascus' technique some years before the West, and would take two dissimilar steels and pound them into a plate, fold the plate over and then make a plate of four layers of steel .... continuing the process until it was several hundred layers thick and extremely strong and flexible ... hence the Samurai Sword.

What do you think?