My early razors with cast steel have been all over the place as far as hardness. Some have been maybe a step soft vs typical Sheffield steel, others similar, while some have been surprisingly hard.
What do people think of cast steel + Restoration
- Thread starter Bevel
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All steel is cast. From there it can be rolled or forged or what have you. Or not. I wonder if these were cast to near net shape?
Another aside: someone mentioned not mistaking cast steel for cast iron - because it has plenty of carbon in it. Iron has more carbon than steel. To make steel you can just take carbon out of cast iron.
Just a couple added thoughts/facts. Cool razor.
Another aside: someone mentioned not mistaking cast steel for cast iron - because it has plenty of carbon in it. Iron has more carbon than steel. To make steel you can just take carbon out of cast iron.
Just a couple added thoughts/facts. Cool razor.
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- #23
This is what I always assumed.
Boiling water or steam will convert red iron oxide (red rust) to black iron oxide. It's generally a good idea to give it more time than a pour-over for a good conversion though.
I was thinking of just iron as opposed to cast iron although I didn't believe that cast iron would have much of any carbon anyway.
My wrong.
I believe the cast steel razors were cast to shape as well. Commemorative ones for sure, world trade fair razors for example.
My neighbor has a great example of the Chicago trade fair 1890 something.
Pure iron is relatively soft and cannot be hardened as far as I'm aware, except perhaps by exotic lab-only methods. I should have used "cast iron" in my last post where I used "iron" to better differentiate them. Cast iron (iron metal with carbon and other alloying elements added) on the other hand can be hardened to a pretty high level, generally by chilling. It gets very hard indeed when chilled. Hard enough that cutting it with tungsten carbide is difficult to impossible.
As has been previously mentioned, Cast Steel simply refers to a steel type and not to a method of manufacture of the razor.
All steel is cast TODAY, which is an important qualifier. But before the crucible process and it's derivatives became the main way to create steel in the 18th to 19th centuries, most steel was created by the cementation process where bars of wrought iron were enclosed in what were called 'coffins', large fire clay boxes where the iron was layered with bone char, wood charcoal and various other materials. This coffin was fired in a furnace, sometimes for up to a week to create blister steel. But much like case hardening, you ended up with a very high carbon 'skin' around each bar with the softer iron still residing in the center. These bars were then folded much like one would fold pattern welded steel. One fold was labeled 'Best Shear Steel', two folds was 'Best Best', and three was 'Best, Best, Best' (I do not kid) or 'Treble Best'. These words were often stamped into the blades to signify the quality, sometimes they might simply be stamped 'Shear Steel'. This type of steel was even used right up into the early 20th century in England.
Cast steel was an improvement because it was a much purer product because all the alloying elements and fluxes could be evenly distributed through the stock. If you ever happen to find an old shear steel blade in poor condition, you will often notice a de-laminating effect because of silica and various other inclusions left from the wrought iron used to create the bar stock. Even then, the cast steel of Huntsman was of nowhere near the cleanliness of steel today, improvements such as the Bessemer process, open hearth furnaces, etc really improved things a lot.
Even though modern steel is cast, by the time it gets to end users it has likely been hot and/or cold rolled, which is pretty much a forging process in itself. Even then, a steel manufacturer will still have a spec for thin field inclusions per volume of bar.
There is absolutely no evidence that razors or other edge tools (knives, sickles, surgical instruments, etc) made in the traditional cutlery centers in places like Sheffield, Thiers, Solingen, etc, were ever cast to shape and then ground. You simply would not be able to get the uniformity of material, removal of slag, impurities and air pockets without some type of forging. There's all sorts of woo about forging today that with modern steel doesn't make any sense but back then forging was actually important to refine the base material. Stock removal methods of blade manufacture are only viable because of all the processing modern steel goes through along with the cleanliness of the melt.
As far as cast iron goes, it is far and away a different material to the old puddled and wrought iron of old which had an extremely low carbon content, high ductility and malleability.
Yes you are right, I should have qualified that to "steel made in the last 100+ years." The earliest steels were made in completely different fashion - and even that depended on the timeframe and location where it was made. Whether this razor fits in the former or the latter category I do not know. Makers have copied all sorts of markings over the centuries without knowing what they actually mean. The lack of a stubby tail and the rudimentary markings with no branding make me think possibly mid to late 1800s. (Warranted? By whom?! Haha).
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