Tour Of England 1785

[RichardB]

Source

[lysander]

Fascinating...The "mysterious" steel making process mentioned,was known as "cementation" and produced what was commonly known as "****** steel". The process involved covering the iron bars with carbonaceous materials and when sufficiently hot, carbon atoms were transferred to the iron bars...A process which did produce steel but of variable quality. Huntsman' s invention of the "crucible" process revolutionised the industry.

[lysander]

Sorry the ******** is because the website recognises the word as , perhaps, insulting...which it certainly wasn't in the 18th century...try F*g*ot

[SteveHB]

Sorry the ******** is because the website recognises the word as , perhaps, insulting...which it certainly wasn't in the 18th century...try F*g*ot

That is strange, the word faggot works for me

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggoting_%28metalworking%29

[RLongden]

I was always of the belief that the cementation process produced blister steel?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blister_steel

..... whereas '****** (aggotfe) steel' is something different altogether?

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggoting_(metalworking)

(Seems that pig Latin gets around the censors?! )

[lysander]

My understanding is that "Blister steel "was so called because of its appearance after the process was completed...the surface was raised in a series of "blisters".. This happens even in a modern re-heating furnace if the steel is over-heated and "burned"...This leaves the steel with a similar appearance to blister steel...F***ot steel was an alternative name and was taken from the appearance of the bundle of steel bars which when placed in the furnace resembled a "F***ot" of wood.

[RLongden]

Blister steel was so called, as blisters are raised by carbon monoxide being formed by a chemical reaction during re-heating, as part of the Cementation process. Fa99oting on the other hand is a metalworking process, where a bundle of iron and / or steel bars are bundled together (like fa99ots), heated to a high temperature and forge welded together (i.e. belted with a big hammer), folded over and fa99oted as many times again to achieve the required strength (twice would be referred to as Best, three times would be Best Best, again would be Treble Best.... and so on). Blister steel that has been fa99oted is known as Shear steel. So, it appears that rather than an actual product called fa99ot steel, fa99oting is the actual fabrication process used to combine several pieces of iron and / or steel into a single bar, with superior strength that the constituent parts - the result of which is Shear steel.

The development of the Crucible steel process mentioned earlier used Blister steel as the base ingredient. The higher temperatures achieved in the crucible produced a much higher quality and uniform grain structure and hence a higher strength material.

Besides the 'Wiki' links I posted earlier, there's some more reading here:

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/564627/steel/81447/History

[lysander]

Thanks for the information.....I was halfway there...Fa99ot steel was advertised ,as such, by several local manufacturers of tool steels in their publicity well into the 1960s...when one suspects the process had long since become redundant.

The crucible process actually saw the metal charge become molten, whereas the earlier processes didn't.. Imported, very pure, Swedish iron was also used as the base charge in the process which saw a more consistent and homogenous steel produced than hitherto and the process also allowed for steel to be made into castings which earlier methods didn't.

The inventor of the process, Benjamin Huntsman, was a Doncaster based clockmaker ( I believe he was born in Epworth, the home of the Wesley's) and became so frustrated with the breaking of clock springs that he set about developing a better method...He eventually moved to Sheffield where a company bearing his name was still in existence into the 1960s...when I had dealings with them.

Interestingly, the process of forge welding was still in use in Sheffield into the 1970s when Iron and steel was welded together into slabs for rolling into plates for manufacturing, amongst others, plough "mould boards"