Steel

[Sir Chauncy]

Does anyone have an acturate date as to when steel was introduced/discovered in Europe? I mean, when did the Iron Age become the steel age so to speak. Having steel must have been as much of an advantage to a civilisation as having Iron over bronze. But I just have no idea when it reached us.

Thanks

[Hosakawa Tito]

I'm not really sure there is a "hard" date for the production of steel in the West. There is some archeological evidence pointing to several sites in Sweden dating to around 1150 AD. Producing steel in large quantities was difficult because the main difference between iron and steel is the amount of carbon present in the metal, I think there is %1 carbon in steel, less in wrought iron, more,%3 1/2 in cast iron. Early smelters only reached about 700 degrees (which produces malleable wrought iron),but is not hot enough to liquify iron. To liquify iron you need temps of about 1200 degrees, at this temp the metal can easily absorb carbon, too much over the %1 for steel and you end up with hard cast iron. Controlling the rate of carbon absorption was very difficult, especially with medieval technology. Small quantities of steel was produced and used for the blade edges, welded around a wrought iron core. Iron production really took off with the introduction of the cannon and the need for casting uniform cannon balls as shot. The technology for producing steel in mass quantities didn't happen till the mid - nineteenth century.

[Sir Chauncy]

thank you anyway, It is more than I knew before.
I was just inerested as to how they made suits of Plate mail. I always thought that they were steel. I mean, surely they would have rusted or been a bit brittle made out of iron? Ho hum, you live and learn.

[Papewaio]

Steel rusts.

You need to add chromium to it to make it stainless steel.

----

However if you happen to pull a piece of metal out of a field and make it into a plough you may be lucky enough to have picked a piece of an iron meteorite.

Some people say that these are what have given rise to the magic swords of legend, the idea being that the iron meteorites have a good base metal low on carbon to make a nice steel sword just by being wrought into shape.

[Hosakawa Tito]

Pape, have you ever read the "Camalud" series of books by Jack Whyte?

[Papewaio]

No, fiction or non-fiction?

[Hosakawa Tito]

Pape, it is a fictional account of the last Romans in Britain. The Empire is crumbling, the Saxons and other "barbarian" tribes are closing in. The hero of the book, can't recall his name, is a blacksmith by trade. He fashions a sword from the metal of a meteorite that he found in the bottom of a lake. He retrieved the main lump of meteorite the good old fashioned Roman way, he drained the lake. I believe it's a 6 book series, very entertaining reading. A kind of Aurthurian tale that is much more to my liking. I just found the last 3 titles in my library. The titles are:
Book 1 - The Skystone
Book 2 - The Singing Sword
Book 3 - The Eagle's Brood
Book 4 - The Saxon Shore
Book 5 - The Fort at River's Bend
Book 6 - The Sorcerer: Metamorphosis

The publisher is Forge, author is Jack Whyte. I recommend them highly. Read them in order to get the most out of them.
I wish they would make a movie following this tale of the Arthurian legend. Read it and let me know what you think.

[deejayvee]

The Camulod Chronicles are a great read and I thoroughly recommend them to everyone.

[Kingmaker]

Well, here ya go:

The Celts produced a type of carbon fortified iron as early as 300-500 BC. It contains enough carbon to be calssified as "steel" and it allowed them to produce the long bladed swords of the La Tene perio, specifically the La Tene Type II swords, which had blades about 30 inches long. If these blades were made of iron, then they would have been far too soft to be useful. The Franks certainly had steel in their swords in 6-8th centuries. And, of course, the Vikings produced a LOT of swords using steel... often pattern welded with lower carbon content steel or even iron to stretch the supply of quality steel.

Certainly by the High Middle Ages virtually all military weapons (except possibly arrow heads)and much armor would be produced of steel.

Plate armor in the high and late middle ages was certianly produced from steel. Iron simply isn't hard enough to do the job and can't take a temper.

So... the answer is that Steel has been availble to some degree in the west for over 2000 years, though it should be remebered that even when it was available, it's use was by no means universal and the QUALITY of the steel varied widely.

For purposes of MTW, however, we can assume that all the weapons were of some form of steel.

Kingmaker

[Knight_Yellow]

king iron isnt that soft

if iron was so soft as u say then wouldnt bronze be completely useless

if u dont believe me permit me to hit u with an iron rod.

[Hakonarson]

Pure iron IS very soft compared to cast iron or steel - it hardens up with the addition of carbon. It's actually softer than common bronzes.

However most iron is "wrought" - with low carbon content it is fairly malleable and can be easily hammered into shapes. It's somewhat harder than pure iron because it absorbs carbon from the atmosphere and the fires it tends to be put in to be heated so it can be worked.

Cast Iron is high carbon Iron (>3.5%) and as we all know is extremely hard but also brittle - once formed it cannot be hammered as it simply snaps.

Steel is about 1-1.5% carbon, and ancient technologies were not able to produce this reliably enough worldwide - there were pockets of steel production - eg the Spanish swords were famous in the ancient world (Gladius hispanicus et al) and this may have been due to use of steel by their smiths - but it could not be replicated.

Various other places are famous for their steel too - southern India, some parts of China - again localised.

the problem with making steel is that when iron heats up to about 1150 deg C it starts absorbing carbon by virtue of changes to its structure, and the carbon-iron alloy melts, and the carbon absorbtion is "automatic" up to 3.5% - so no-one can do much about it in "normal" smelting processes.

Production of steel required either de-carburizing the high-carbon iron by smelting it in a closed oxygen rich environment, or limiting the amount of carbon available by smelting it in a closed environment with a measured carbon content.

The Chinese tended to use the former, Europeans the later. I don't know what India used

Both produced fairly limited amounts of steel and relied upon luck rather than science to achieve their output.

it wasn't until the mid 1700's that a Swedish scientist investigated the chemistry of iron, and the of course Hentry Bessemer invented his furnace to enable RELIABLE large scale steel production and the rest is of cours history http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[DojoRat]

I have a rudimentary knowledge of Japanese sword making and was wondering what similarities/differences the damascene and pattern welded swords of the west and near east had to them in terms of process. Did they beat out and fold over as the Japanese did or use some other process?