Talk:Steel

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[edit] Why does "Steel Industry" redirect to Steel?

Steel industry deserves its own article. The industry itself can be written at length, for example including things such as the role of the steel industry in war, commerce, and politics. These issues however do not fit with the article of 'steel' per se. Steel Industry would be an article in economics and maybe some other categories, the substance of steel however, is of interest not only from the 'steel industry' perspective but from other perspectives. In the following days I will write a 'Steel Industry' page if no one objects.

[edit] older entries

Steel and Wrought Iron percentages: I quote "Steel is also to be distinguished from wrought iron with little or no carbon, usually less than 0.035%." However it says in the same paragraph that Steel varies between 0.02 and 1.7% Carbon, which overlaps the top range of wrought iron's carbon content. Is that to say that steel can have a lower carbon content than wrought iron, presumably to not be wrought iron it must have something else in it. Is this so?

"Henry VII commissioned a new ironworks at Newcastle, in a part of Sussex known as the Weald". Something is wrong here. There is no Newcastle in Sussex, certainly not the Newcastle-on-Tyne that the link goes to. Can anyone correct this?

This article is a work of racism. Nowhere in the article is steelcraft in africa mentioned, nor the fact that the bloomery was invented in africa by africans. This article doesn't adhere to any standard of literary decency, and should not be a so-called "good article".

then don't just complain about it. Do some research and add the missing information. Jerdwyer 05:57, 9 August 2006 (UTC)


I was taught at school that it's up to 2.11% of carbon in the alloy (not 1.7).

Ruok 01:04, 18 March 2007 (UTC)


I have done that research and submitted some citations, although I'm not sure exactly how to do it other than be editing the page. My edits have not been accepted yet. My resources are valid. It's difficult to do the same research over and over again, without knowing whether one's efforts will be used. I'm not sure why I should spend lots more time on this unless some of my efforts are acknowledged. Perhaps someone will email me with details, now that I've registered. All of these resources are academic and require some effort to cite, but here they are again: "Early Metal Working in Sub Saharan Africa," Journal of African History 35 (1994) 1-36. 1994, Cambridge University Press, Authors: Duncan E. Miller and N.J. Van Der Merwe. "Radiocarbon Chronology of the Iron Age in Sub-Saharan Africa," Current Anthropology 1968, authors, Minze Stuiver and N.J. Van Der Merwe. There are several others. The dates in the current article on Iron for early use of iron in Egypt and Sumera are completely wrong (according to these two articles and several others I've already submitted to wikipedia). Iron filings, a byproduct of copper industry (which was undergoing profound supply problems in the early second millenium B.C.) are found in Sumeria and Egypt - but they are not smelted iron, nor does anyone state which type of iron they were, but they were unusable in any form as tools. The appearance of the earlist iron implements is almost universally attributed to Troy, Mykenos and Assyria, three interrelated places - all with access to meteoritic iron in Anatolia around 2,000. The mines in Anatolia show that the iron itself was discovered around 2,000B.C. by metallurgists more familiar with copper working, but they knew they'd found something important. The first tools made from that iron appear in Anatolia around 1,500BC (there are good dates on two artifacts from 1800 BC in Anatolia). It is not until after iron has appeared in Anatolia that weapons made of it appear anywhere else - and it was not used for "little objects" like figurines until much later - it was used for maceheads and other weapons being developed in the region from the very start. The Anatolians were already producing much of the bronze spearpoints and maceheads during the Bronze Age (and heavily guarded many of their secrets). Neither Egypt nor Sumeria had any indigeneous reliable sources of tin and copper, as everyone writing about iron should know. Iron was even more rare, to those two places, at that time. In fact saying something showed up in "Sumeria" at 4000 BC needs to be supported - I know of know reputable archaeologist of metal who would say that. By 2000 BC, it is incorrect to refer to "Sumeria" as "Sumeria," as the Sumerian language had entirely disappeared (as well as any people claiming to be descendants of the original Sumerians - all gone). It was Babylon, by then, with an entirely different language than Sumerian - and by 1700 BC or so, it was under attack by Assyria (who had bronze weapons, and possibly iron ones) and the Babylonians were woefully lacking in bronze. Someone or several parties had been pirating around the eastern Mediterranean from around 1800 BC (the same time that the Phoenicians appear to history) attacking cities, stipping them of Bronze - and apparently reselling it or building their own arsenals. It is unlikely that shipgoing people had metal smelting on board - and the current archaeology of likely "enemies," such as Carthage (Phoenician-controlled) or Etrusca reveal no such metalworking ability - it had to have been taken to Assyria or Anatolia or Egypt for smelting, if it was stolen from A Bablyonian context or Mycenae/Mykenos). The most common use of bronze was in making adzes and hoes, and in Assyria, the earliest use of iron appears to be hoe-making ("The Technology of Three Assyrian Iron Artifacts" Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 1979, The University of Chicago Press, author: Radomir Pleiner). It was a poor quality iron, by the way - all of which needs to be addressed in the history section. [User Kaimiikekamaila 19:11, 28 October 2006 (UTC)kaimiikekamaila, October 28, 2006]

Where did the iron come from for these alleged Sumerian and Egyptian artifacts? Who dated them and by what method? Were these from controlled stratigraphic sequences? I seriously doubt it. Since the archaeology of metals is a field unto itself, I suggest Wikipedia contact someone who knows about the subject to write this article. I think it's an essential part of the iron article - and I don't think iron should be combined in with steel, as an article, if the iron article is already so remiss in its data. The accumulation of metals and metal weaponry in the Bronze Age and the Late Bronze Age spells out a story among historical and technological forces that must be included. An author like E. Photos should at least be consulted. The whole question of when meteoritic iron was used (and when it wasn't) and where the nickel rich sources of iron might have been has to be considered.

As to African iron use, it seems clearly independent - especially in terms of the tool traditions themselves, to which iron is applied. No one is saying that Sub Saharan Africans had the regionally based technologies and markets of the eastern Mediterranean - but they did have iron. Iron use, in smelting and pouring for tools, appears in Subsaharan Africa at least 1,200 BC. The traditional date for the very first iron tools in Egypt and "Sumeria" is 1200 BC - not 4000BC (I can't find a single author who still state that - the date probably came from a history book, not a prehistory/archaeology book. Archaeologists work in teams with chemists, physicists, geologists and others to properly date things - they don't guess). I doubt myself that the eastern Mediterranean use of iron depends upon Sub Saharan Africa (although someone could clearly figure it out with the right kind of physical analysis - I don't know if that's been done). It is more likely that older trade routes involving Anatolia and Assyria were involved, and it is also likely that date is a bit earlier than 1200 BC (more like 1500 BC). But what is clear is that metal use, especially of iron, was becoming a quest for the Ancient World System, due to the stripping of bronze from port cities, inland cities (like Jerusalem) and elsewhere, and the incredibly sudden onset of a shortage of tin during almost the entire second millenium BC. It is likely that the Trojan war was fought in part to reallocate metal to the winners. Wikipedia places the Trojan War at 1200-1300BC, which is a good bracket of dates - but it's right in the middle of this ongoing "world" conflict about metals, and it has to do with those metals and their allocation. IRON weapons were found at Troy in 1902 and they were already of good quality - and the level at which they were found dates to around 1200-1300, so shall we say - iron had some distribution up the coast of Anatolia already at 1300 BC? I think the article on iron should make that link. That information is well documented in Photos's article, "The Question of Meteoritic Iron versus Smelted Nickel Iron", World Archaeology 1989. I am not familiar enough with how Wikipedia works to know how to add all this information to the article. [UserKaimiikekamaila 19:11, 28 October 2006 (UTC)Kaimiikekamaila, Oct. 29, 2006]. I hope these references stand as back up to the edits I made yesterday and that someone looks at those edits seriously - at least take out the goofy information about "Egypt" and "Sumeria" at 4000 B.C. - or find a reliable scientifically based citation (not a guess from a historan) about such matters.

The sentence is mine, but the source I thought said it, does not in fact name a Newcastle as the site of the first English blast furnace.

I did some Googling, and this site [1] names a Newbridge in the Ashdown Forest as the site of Henry's 1496 construction. Shimmin 11:10, Jun 2, 2005 (UTC)


need more history. i found a webpage once that claimed there were people in Africa who had developed special kilns using dried up termite hills and 8-man tube-blowing teams that could actually produce steel without any sort of industrial power, but that the tradition was going extinct with the introduction of industrialized products.

i have also read interesting things about 'wootz' steal from the india/paksitan/afghanistan region which was highly thought of in europe apparently.

wootz steel = Damascus steel, best in the world until the introduction of Huntsman's technique in 1740, aka "Sheffield steel". Bessemer's process produces steel of the same quality for a fraction of the cost.

[edit] Other type of "steel"

The discussion should also include ductile iron and cast iron, including the history and commercial usage.

Note that ferrite is not linked, although there is a page on this concerning its magnetic properties - would it be appropritate to link this? Leonard G. 04:54, 4 May 2004 (UTC)

Jared Diamond (Guns, etc) claims that Bantu people were heating Steel before the birth of Christ, on both coasts (East & West) I think, unless I misremember.

[edit] Properties of steel

I think a table on the side needs to be created showing the many different properties of steel. Other articles on materials should have this as well. In particular I was looking for its resisitivity or conductivity. Other useful properties would be melting point, atomic or molecular mass, maleability, etc. Perhaps this page is too general to have such specifics, but in that case, there could be a table to "see the properties of" carbon steel, stainless, etc. Fresheneesz 03:27, 23 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Disambiguation

I added the link to Steel (disambiguation) because it may expand to include other uses of the word that are not already covered here (such as Danielle Steel, or other persons that may have that name). I don't see what it hurts to have it here, so I'm reinstating it. Please bring up any objections here. -- Wapcaplet 06:32, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Currently three of the four disamb links refer to this article or types of steel discussed in and linked to within this article. Surely anyone searching for the author wouldn't just type in steel - well maybe they would, considering the intelligence level. Seems to be just unneeded clutter now. It may expand -- but will it? I'll leave it there for now, pending expansion. Ferrous is out. -Vsmith 15:32, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)
I don't agree with the Steel disambig link - for pretty much the same reasons as VSmith - but won't revert until I see if there is any more response. Noisy | Talk 17:00, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Fair enough. The Steele disambiguation page is what made me think to add it, but that page also contains some links that probably shouldn't be there. Do as you will with it. -- Wapcaplet 18:12, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

don't forget the film of the same name and its eponymous DC comic hero. <.< that seems like a worthwhile thing to justify a disambiguation page.

[edit] Density

  • Shouldn't quantitative physical properties such as density be listed here?


I'm willing to do a general properties of steel section - I'll make the physical properties those of say 1008 carbon (the most vanilla grade on earth) or A36 - and then provide some example of different grades mech props. Suggestions welcome and appreciated. Will put together before 1/28/05 RyanDiS

I've been told that steel has a "characteristic length" of 40 km. The formula for characteristic length is tensile-strength/(density*1g). I was hoping the steel article could either confirm that number, or tell me the correct number. --DavidCary 19:31, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Is this a featured article? If not, why not? It is truly excellent Tannin 09:29, 5 Feb 2005 (UTC)

I hadn't seen your comment, Tannin, but I think so too! -- llywrch 04:36, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Iron more brittle than steel

"Steel with increased carbon content can be made harder and stronger than iron, but is also more brittle." High carbon steel is more brittle than low carbon steel, but it is less brittle than iron. This sentense structure can be misleading.

[edit] African iron age

Removed this claim (steel, 1400 BC) for two reasons.

(1) Among archaeologists, there exists little consensus as to the date of the beginning of the iron age in sub-Saharan Africa. Stating a date in the second millennium BC should not be done without stating covering this controversy in more detail.

(2) Determining what is wrought iron and what is low-carbon steel is an impossible judgment call. See first English novel for an example of a similarly meaniningless academic argument. Shimmin 15:52, May 16, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Hardened steel

I'm trying to help fix a link on the spring (device) page for hardened steel. Am I right in thinking that hardened steel is just an annealed steal, and perhaps more exactly that spring steel an annealed high carbon steel.

no that is completely incorrect. Annealed is the opposite of hardend, while spring steel referst to a specific type of alloy.--Knife Knut 04:49, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

In either case, we could probably use a redirect for each and appropriate descriptions added to this page. -- Solipsist 20:18, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if we can get away with making a "hardened steel" page without someone calling it a dicdef, but let's give it a try. Meggar 07:15, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Definition

Defining steel as mainly iron with a primary alloying element of carbon is problematic since modern high speed steels are all "alloying element" and no iron. Alternatively is you're taking the view that high speed steels which contain no iron are just mis-named this should be mentioned.

  • I have never seen a HSS that doesn't contain iron. Look at the definition of High speed steel Wizard191 23:04, 21 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Template?

I propose we create Template:Steels along the lines of Template:Punctuation marks. I'll start and, if it looks good, it can get added to the appropriate pages. —BenFrantzDale 21:26, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] One-step production

Does anyone know of a one-step industrial-scale production method for steel? I have recently heard of a new method that uses a single step to produce steel, and has a 90-95% yield from iron ore to steel (as opposed to 60-70%, right?). It's supposed to be a special form of furnace in which you place the iron ore at the beggining and extract steel at the end. --AK7 16:22, 31 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] African perspective

This article is a work of racism. Nowhere in the article is steelcraft in africa mentioned, nor the fact that the bloomery was invented in africa by africans. This article doesn't adhere to any standard of literary decency, and should not be a so-called "good article". -- —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.24.236.159 (talk • contribs) 06:46, 7 February 2006.

This can be quite a common problem on Wikipedia. At the moment, the majority of editors are from the West and despite efforts to counter bias, we don't always have an accurate global view. You could try adding the template {{Globalize}} to the top of this talk page, in order to tag it for extra attention. -- Solipsist 07:54, 7 February 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Any experts on steel's melting point?

Hi. Sort of off-topic for Wikipedia in a sense. But this could help another article on wikipedia. A series of US "Experts" claim that 9/11 could be a hoax based on a set of reasons they've outline. One of them is that:

  • "Since the melting point of steel is about 2,700*F, the temperature of jet fuel fires does not exceed 1,800*F under optimal conditions, and UL certified the steel used to 2,000*F for six hours, the buildings cannot have collapsed due to heat from the fires. How is this possible?

Does anyone happen to know if these temperatures quoted could be correct?

I contend anyone can throw a bunch of facts and figures against a chalk board and contend it is so. And a majority of the people who have *no idea* of what is true or not, might 'buy it' and accept it as fact. So my question is do these temperatures in fact hold true based on the knowledge of others here?

Talk:September_11,_2001_attacks#Experts_Claim_Official_9.2F11_Story_is_a_Hoax.3F

Source: Experts Claim Official 9/11 Story is a Hoax

The by-line is "PRWEB" and the 'experts' are Robert M. Bowman, James H. Fetzer, Wayne Madsen, John McMurtry, Morgan Reynolds, and Andreas von Buelow: either Researchers questioning the official account of 9/11 or 9/11 Conspriacy theorists, depending on which fork you prefer. It is the nature of conspiracy theories that they either ignore rebuttals, or incorporate them as part of the conspiracy, so I am not sure how much difference it makes what the actual material properties of steel are, but steel melts between 2400 and 2800 F. Tom Harrison Talk 21:07, 11 February 2006 (UTC)
Those temperatures look like the right order of magnitude, but from what I've heard it sounds like the cause of failure was buckling due to creep, which can occur at about half the absolute melting temperature, so on the order of 1100 °F, just barely red-hot. ―BenFrantzDale 06:13, 12 February 2006 (UTC)
Ben is correct, at high temperatures creep becomes a real problem. But more so at these high temperatures steel can convert from BCC to FCC, which has a much lower YS (yield strength). The steel used was probably some sort of mild steel, which means the temperature where this transformation occurs is around 1350 F, which is much below the 1800 F under ideal conditions. I suspect the experts just said it "melted" to simplify it for the media and now the conspiracy therorist are running with this misinformation. Wizard191 05:14, 15 February 2006 (UTC)
There ware a lot of molten steel and were desposed by government instead of investigate it. The fire itself did not seem to be hot enough first of all. See jet fuel. Unless you are a part of these criminal acts, you should admit it is impossible. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.225.105.102 (talk) 17:34, 26 February 2007 (UTC).

[edit] Iron vs. steel

Wrought iron has too little carbon, and is therefore too malleable; cast iron has too much carbon, and is therefore too brittle. Then why not mix them together to get steel? I’m guessing that there’s more to steel than just carbon quantity. Is it structure? I can’t really understand the section of the article that explains it, and I don’t have time to read it all. If possible, could a brief explanation of the difference be included in the introduction? Twilight Realm 01:41, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a metalurgist, but I don't see a real reason you couldn't mix the two to get steel. The issue is that carbon is only so soluable in iron, so if you add more than about %2.1 carbon, it won't stay in solution. There is more to steel than this, because the carbon and iron can come in different crystal phases which is what's going on with heat-treating. —BenFrantzDale 12:50, 9 March 2006 (UTC)
There has been a process in the past (not yet described in Wikipedia) that have produced steel from molten pig iron and wrought iron plates. However it evidently did not produce as good steel as later methods. Mixing wrought iron and pig iron would require the process to be carried out at a high enough temperative to melt wrought iron. It was hard to produce a high enough temperature to melt steel (see crucible steel), the melting point of pure iron would be still higher. There would also be problems with impurities and getting a homogeneous product. Peterkingiron 17:45, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Africa

Try hide the African connection way down at the bottom of this discussion page while calling this a good article? Here are a couple informative links retrived from a quick google: http://www.ironsmelting.net/www/smelting/index.html http://www.yale.edu/environment/publications/bulletin/102pdfs/102lanfranchi.pdf http://portal.unesco.org/culture/en/ev.php-URL_ID=5166&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html http://www.springerlink.com/(tyce3mmwujm5qdvpsbzxe345)/app/home/contribution.asp?referrer=parent&backto=issue,10,10;journal,38,48;linkingpublicationresults,1:104827,1 unsigned comment by 153.2.246.33

[edit] Possible copyvios

I removed two large edits that were identical to text here and here. DVD+ R/W 03:00, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] tanja

ngnghgh

It is perhaps unfortunate (but probably inevitable) that this historical section of this article has conlated iron with steel. Steel is an alloy of iron with 1-2% carbon, whereas iron is either cast iron (or pig iron) with 4-5% carbon or wrought iron with neglibible carbon. Accordingly the discussion of Abraham Darby (who made iron NOT steel) ought not to be part of this article. Peterkingiron 15:08, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

On looking at historical sections further, I found a significant number of errors that I ahve corrected. In particular the raw material for blister steel was bar iron, not ore; and Huntsman's crucible process involved blister steel not cast and bar iron. I continue to have grave doubts about whether sections on ironmaking belong her at all. Recent research publihsed in Sussex Archaeological Collections indicates that Newbridge was not quite the first blast furnace in England. However there were earlier ones in the Pay de Bray in France and even earlier in Namur (Belgium). It seems that they may have developed in Germany or Sweden in the medieval period. Peterkingiron 15:59, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] industrial steelmaking

I found (and have altered) the incorrect statement that steel powered the industrial revolution. Iron (rather than steel) was important in the first industrial revolution. Steel was an expensive commodity and only used where this was unavoidable before Bessemer. Peterkingiron 22:52, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Add blurb to end of intro?

I suggest adding this after the first two intro paragraphs to get a better 'introductory' feeling to steel:

"Steel, defined as such, constitutes one of the most studied materials in all of materials science. In fact, the study of steels is so extensive that most of all metallurgical literature ever published is divided into two categories: 'ferrous' volumes, which pertain to steel, and 'nonferrous' volumes, which pertain to everything else. Even in the present, there arguably exists no other metal, ceramic, polymer, or composite class that can combine superior performance, cost-effectiveness, and sheer versatility to the degree that steel can. Over the years, steel has earned a reputation that makes it one of the few widely recognizable metals to which many other materials are compared to as a standard, in both non-technical and technical fields."


[edit] From Heaviside

Nobody likes to be overly critical to a selfless piece of scholarship. But if you are interested in a fascinating and humorous description from a metallurgical point of view that includes many historical references to India, Japan, China and Africa then go to:

http://www.tf.uni-kiel.de/matwis/amat/def_en/kap_5/advanced/t5_1_4.html

totally awesome - I hate to say it but it blows this rather thin Wikipedian offering out of the water. As a matter of fact it should wholesale replace this article. Heaviside

[edit] Damascus Steel "nano-tubes"?

Can this nanotube nonsense be taken out since there is clearly no citations for such an outlandish claim?

I found a citation separate from the one listed. It looks like there's some support for the claim, though I admit I'm skeptical as well. The cementite whiskers I fully believe, though.--Joel 07:14, 8 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Solubility of carbon in iron

Someone put in a peak solubility of carbon in iron of 2.04% at 1146°C. My book (cited in the article) says 1.7% at 1130°C. It's very possible that both could be right, depending on quantities of manganese or other impurities or something. Please cite your source, or additional numbers, and we can try to sort this out.--Yannick 02:32, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

If it's the number I put in when I edited this page long ago, the number comes from the Encyclopedia of Chemical Technology, 4th ed. In the meantime, someone else has put in a graphical phase diagram, which also eyeballs to a maximum solubility of carbon in austentite of slightly over 2% at around 1150°C. Shimmin 11:58, 10 August 2006 (UTC)
Hmm. Somebody else just put in a third set of numbers, citing a third source. This may be a difficult problem to pin down. The following link suggests there is not yet a consensus on this: http://doc.tms.org/ezMerchant/prodtms.nsf/ProductLookupItemID/MMTA-0406-1655/$FILE/MMTA-0406-1655F.pdf --Yannick 22:40, 10 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge tag (Cast Iron#Historical uses > Steel#History of iron and steelmaking

Some one has put a merge tag on the history section. At presetn there are a number of parallel articels with similar content, including blast furnace, wrought iron. I tried some moths ago to correct some of the content that was definitely wrong. However it is unsatisfactory to have a variety of articles covering exactly the same ground. One solution is to break up the aricle into a number of separate ones, leaving a summary of each in a 'main' article. However, there is the problem of people expanding the 'main' article when they should be expanding subsidiary ones. A further problem is that discussions of iron keep creeping into discussions of steel and vice versa. This requires some one to be quite ruthless in removing semi-relevant content, and transferring it to the articles in which it properly belongs. One of the articles has a long section on early iron and steel around the world: that might be better as a separate article. Peterkingiron 18:04, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I suggest to create a new article: history of siderurgy. It would comprind Iron, stell and cast Iron. I want to point out that what we call Iron is a chemical helements. Manufacts, today and is the past were made with STEEL, even if in everyday language is called "iron". There is a single hisory for steel, iron and cast Iron. It's the hisory of siderurgy. It's ok to have aricle about blast furnace and wrought iron, they shall be particulare aspect of the siderurgy. --Giovanni Giove 18:48, 2 September 2006 (UTC)
Oppose. The content of Cast_Iron#Historical_uses is exactly on subject. Why should the information be burried in the other article. Meggar 01:06, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Because the history of steel, iron and cast iron, is a single hisotry. Cast iron was the first time obtained during the reduction of iron ore into bloom. Then the production of the cast iron (as pig iron), has became a step of stell production. Iron, steell and cast iron are three aspect of the siderurgy. They do not have separate histories.--Giovanni Giove 11:14, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
Could we concentrate for the moment on the title of the section with the merge-from tag. It seems to be about historical uses of cast iron. When we see merge tags it is taken to mean that one article or section will be gone after it is merged into another. Meggar 02:47, 17 September 2006 (UTC)
I oppose merging the chemical article with any metallurgical article. Steel/Iron is a metal, Iron is a chemical element. The Steel/Iron topic is a material, smithworks and alloy topic, while the chemical element iron is a topic mostly about the chemical properties of different iron compounds. Both topics are so vast, that mergers will create immense articles. Better to keep subjects separate then. Rursus 22:28, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose suggested merge but propose a general clean up As I indicated above there is a lot of merging that needs to be done, but I do not have the time not do I have the expertise on some periods. I would suggest that we need the following articles:

  • Iron - chemistry; this should be pruned of most metallurgy (with cross-reference to a 'main' article on the subject).
  • Iron and steel (metallurgy): a general article briefly dealing with major processes etc. This should refer to 'main' articles dealing with each process or kind of plant in more detail
  • The early use of iron: this would cover its archaeology and spread into each continent or region. This would deal with the complaints above about the lack of reference to Africa, a matter on whose merit I cannot judge.
  • Separate articles on each iron or steel making process, focusing principally on that process, but showing its relation to others.
  • I am not sure how necessary it is to have separate articles on each different kind of iron and steel; but if we do, care must be taken that they do not merely duplicate the content of the 'process' articles.

This list is not necessarily comprehensive - further suggestions are welcome. Peterkingiron 01:09, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

Merge progress I have created a new article History of Ferrous Metallurgy by editing the previous Iron#History section. I propose, when I have time to merge the Steel History section into this, leaving a much briefer account in this article. I continue to oppose any merger of the cast iron#history section. I hope to deal with some of the compaints above, but prehistoric iron is not my subject, so that I will need to leave a cleanup tag. Peterkingiron 17:42, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

I have removed the merge tag from cast iron#history. Having constructed a new History of Ferrous Metallurgy article (as above), the suggested destination is certainly not the right place to put it. If some one else feels strongly about this, no doubt they can restore the tag, with a new destination. However, I do not think this has merit. Peterkingiron 17:05, 18 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Celtiberian Steel?

I read on Encyclopaedia Britannica that the Celts in central Iberia casted steel weapons. I am not sure how true this is though because the only steel casting I have heard in ancient times was of China. Can anyone confirm or debunk this? -Zulu, King Of The Dwarf People 21:30, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I think EB must be wrong. There is no prehistoric evidence for molten iron or steel in Europe that I have ever heard of. The Celts' weapons may well have contained some steel, but not 'cast'. Peterkingiron 16:57, 30 September 2006 (UTC)

It said that they used a technique of heating it underground or something of the sort. I will look into it more and post the sources if I find any. I did not mean cast steal sorry, I was just looking for the right verb for 'smelting metals'. Thank you... -Zulu, King Of The Dwarf People 23:14, 1 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History of iron - from the journal Gjuteriet

1978: clear explanation of the assay analysis of early iron. A few ornaments early on (various places, not smelted iron). Then Anatolia/Hittites - etc. EVERYONE agrees (in my view) that it is the Hittites (an Indo-European group, btw) who first smelted iron and distributed as tools. That's by 1500 BC (at the lastest), good evidence of some Hittite iron foundries at 1700-1800BC.Kaimiikekamaila 19:28, 28 October 2006 (UTC)Kaimiikekamaila

Also - as the prehistory of iron in "Europe," perhaps Wikipedia needs to disambiguate "Europe" in this context. If Anstolia isn't part of Europe - then where is it? It certainly isn't on a different continent than the rest of Europe, it uses an Indo-European language, it has been part of two regional systems (the Levantian and the Indo-European since 45,000BP or longer!) (unsigned)

Anatolia is also called Asia Minor. Turkey east of the Bosphorus is in Asia. I do not know what the Hittites had, but the correct term is certainly not 'foundry', which implies molten iron. The correct term is likely to be bloomery. Peterkingiron 01:13, 14 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] African Steel: Guess what I have!

Well, I had a subscription to Science Magazine (that just ran out), but I seem to still have access to the article archives online.

22 September 1978, Volume 201, Number 4361: Complex Iron Smelting and Prehistoric Culture in Tanzania Peter Schmidt and Donald H. Avery. This is the actual research article that the websites a lot of people on the discussion page are saying that "they read something about African steelmaking on a website". It bothers me that this is not mentioned, but I'm too chicken to edit the article myself, at least not without putting this on the talk page.

This article discusses the Hayan smelting process in Oyo furnaces in detail, reporting their research and observation of Hayan elders making the iron (and sometimes steel). The difference in the African process is that the furnaces are blasted with preheated air around 600 degrees celsius, caused by "tuyeres" (heated pipes) inserted into the furnaces. These caused the furnace to reach temperatures as high, or possibly higher than, 1820 degrees celsius. That is, the African smelting process was not the bloomery process.

Though as of the date of this article it is unknown whether the Yoruba preheated their furnaces, it is known that they did produce high carbon steel. (the article cites "C. V. Bellamy, ibid. 66, 99 (1904)", a source I cannot find.

Also as of 1978, another smelting process of the Wafipa people produced high-quality iron and possibly (well, as of 1978 "possibly") steel, through a different method than used by the Hayan.

Archaeological remains of similar furnaces and tuyeres in West Lake (the area where these Hayan furnaces were demonstrated to the authors of the article) are 1500 to 2000 years old.

Debra Shore wrote an article in 1983, but I also can't get a copy of it. It should be available at my public library, though.

CaTigeReptile 17:50, 5 January 2007 (UTC)


[edit] steel scrap

this is a picture i took in the port of brussels. steel scrap is pressed in blocks, to be transported over water and recycled. There is nothing about steel recycling in this article... so i don't know where to put the pic. If somebody is up to it?

ps: there is allready a crappy picture of this kind in the section recycling

Rotor DB 21:11, 20 January 2007 (UTC)

meanwhile, somebody wrote a part about steel recycling... unfortunatly, it states some coloured opinions, that clearly come from the steel industry, as visible in the used sources. If i find the time i'll clean it up a bit Rotor DB 23:27, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Steel

Steel was made by the Chinese in 200 B.C.E

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