THRIVING after the FALL

The Index · A subject

Iron and steel

Steel taken from the city, worked at the forge into knives and tools, and kept sharp.

15 documents · 5 chapters · 105 rows

In the chapters

Documents 15

Sources

  • Book Verhoeven, Steel Metallurgy for the Non-Metallurgist
  • Practitioner A working village smith in Brandenburg

All the sources

In the log 105

  • 76 confirmed
  • 11 amended
  • 4 partly confirmed
  • 11 unresolved
  • 3 dropped
  • 24 marked for safety
  • H6 amended Safety Rocket stove: never leave unattended; sticks no thicker than a thumb; pot 2 cm above the riser mouth on iron feet
  • I1 confirmed Safety Zinc on galvanised steel boils at red heat; grinding, welding or forging it gives metal fume fever: shivers, metallic taste, fever, nausea in 4 to 10 hours, lasting a …
  • I10 unresolved Safety Cast iron drum cracks when water hits it hot or the fire is built against one side; never quench in the drum
  • I11 unresolved Safety Manganese (Hadfield) steel: non-magnetic, unhardenable, destroys files and saws; digger teeth, crusher jaws, rail crossings
  • I2 confirmed Safety Cadmium plating fume can kill; plating of a colour steel is not is treated as cadmium; a doctor the same day
  • I3 amended Safety Carbon monoxide from the charcoal fire kills without smell in an hour at the levels a closed workshop reaches; 400 ppm kills within an hour; forge outdoors or in a shed …
  • I8 confirmed Safety Never quench an unknown steel in water: it cracks; warm oil
  • I9 dropped Safety An undamped anvil takes the smith's hearing within a few years; silicone bed, chain, earmuffs regardless
  • K1 confirmed Safety The oil quench flares at the surface every time; the can is steel, tall, 5 litres or more, lidded, no water near; leave the blade in, lid on, never water on burning oil
  • K2 amended Safety Molten iron on a damp mould or a drop of water in the crucible turns to steam a thousand times its volume and throws the iron back; everything dry, leather, face shield, …
  • K3 unresolved Safety As-quenched blade is glass-hard and can shatter if dropped; temper within the hour or it can crack on the bench by itself
  • K47 dropped Safety Oral edge: no tine or rim left sharp; mouth-contact roughness under 10 µm, 400 grit; a steel spoon is tinned or it rusts in the mouth; tine spring 5 to 8 N
  • K5 amended Safety Carbon monoxide at the forge and zinc fume from galvanised steel apply here as before; zinc vaporises above 400 °C
  • K6 confirmed Safety Never quench a file, spring or blade in water
  • K8 unresolved Safety Steel struck below dull red (650 °C) cracks inside and breaks in the quench
  • K9 dropped Safety Painted scrap carries lead into the iron and then into the food; enamel carries boron; stainless chromium
  • W1 confirmed Safety Cu-ETP (wire, 200 to 400 ppm oxygen) blisters and crumbles above about 370 °C in a reducing fire; only Cu-DHP pipe goes in the charcoal forge
  • O11 unresolved Safety Grafting knife cuts toward the thumb; cut away from the body
  • B11 amended Safety Gullet tied twice before opening; bung ringed, drawn out, tied and bagged first (EHEC 35 % → 1.7 %, "twenty-fold"); midline opened with two fingers inside ahead of the …
  • B16 confirmed Safety Blood: bowl under the wound before the knife is out, stirred 5 min with 1 tbsp salt/l until cool, clots in a minute unstirred, 3–4 l from a 100 kg pig, used same day; …
  • B6 confirmed Safety Pig stun: bolt on light charge a finger above the line between the eyes, midline, aimed at tail; stick within 15 s (industry limit for head-only electrical, adopted for …
  • B7 confirmed Safety Hammer/Kopfschlag: universal Hausschlachter method until the 1930s bolt gun; forbidden by TierSchlV for animals over 5 kg (allowed for poultry, rabbits, small animals); …
  • M8 amended Safety Only tinned copper, glazed earthenware, steel or scalded wood; bare copper spoils milk within the hour
  • J6 unresolved Safety Scythe carried blade down and behind; stone moved away from the edge; nobody inside the arc
  • P2 confirmed Iron smelted from bog ore in clay furnaces in the Brandenburg woods
  • H25 confirmed Stove efficiencies: masonry 85 %, steel 50 %, cookstove 75 %, brazier 25 %; charcoal a quarter of its wood; summer kWh costs sixteen times its weight in wood
  • I12 confirmed Iron rings of 1813, Gold gab ich für Eisen, cast at the Royal Prussian Iron Foundry; women gave gold for the war
  • I13 confirmed Forty kilograms and more of iron for every square metre of the city, parks and lakes included
  • I14 amended Steel in use in a rich country 10 to 14 t per person; stable for a generation; Berlin 35 to 50 million tonnes
  • I15 confirmed Iron ore two parts iron in three at best
  • I17 confirmed A car of 1.5 t holds about 900 kg of steel, mostly thin sheet
  • I19 confirmed Mild steel under 0.3 % C cannot be hardened; medium 0.3 to 0.6; high 0.6 and up for edges
  • I20 unresolved Bog iron (Raseneisenstein) smelted by Slavic villages on Spree and Havel from the 8th century in small clay furnaces
  • I22 confirmed Bessemer 1856: air blown through molten pig iron, steel by the tonne in twenty minutes; Siemens-Martin open hearth a few years later
  • I23 confirmed Royal Prussian Iron Foundry 1804 on the Invalidenstrasse; Borsig Oranienburger Tor 1837, first locomotive four years later; by 1900 the north from Moabit to Tegel a …
  • I24 amended Hennigsdorf steelworks opened by AEG in 1917 for war steel; now an electric arc plant melting Berlin scrap into rebar and rail; melted the 1945 ruins
  • I26 amended Iron sorted from rubble by hand and magnet, sent to furnaces first as reparations then for rebuilding; paid in the better ration card (Schwerarbeiterkarte)
  • I27 confirmed EN 10027 stamps: S plus yield strength, C plus carbon in hundredths, 1.xxxx material numbers; 1.7176 = 55Cr3 spring steel
  • I30 confirmed Spark test: mechanism (CO burst), dim light, grind past skin, known 1018 and 1084 pieces, 45° light pressure; the stream table by carbon class, chromium orange, …
  • I35 confirmed Agricola 1556 drew the forge's ancestor with water bellows; Moxon 1683 the London smith's hearth
  • I37 confirmed Coal wants a deep pot and bottom blast; charcoal in a deep pot blows out in sparks and burns the steel; charcoal wants a shallow side-blast trench
  • I40 confirmed Colour scale: dark red 650 to 700, bright red 800 to 900, yellow 1,000 to 1,100, yellow-white with sparks 1,200 to 1,300 welding, white sizzling burning; tempering …
  • I42 confirmed Coal about 1 kg/h at light work; charcoal nearly the same value by weight, a tenth as dense; a day about 100 litres or 12 to 15 kg charcoal, 50 to 60 kg wood; a village …
  • I44 confirmed Anvil: rail flat flexes like a leaf spring and the crowned head lets steel skid; rail on end an unbroken column, half buried; forklift tine 42CrMo4 at about 30 HRC; 20:1 …
  • I45 confirmed Anvil face at knuckle height with the arm hanging
  • I46 confirmed Nine tenths of demolished structural steel in Germany is recovered; about a third of German steel is made from scrap in electric furnaces and the share rises; steel the …
  • K12 confirmed Solingen blades since the 1300s, cutlers' guild by the 1400s
  • K13 confirmed Sheffield water-driven grinding wheels by the 1500s; Huntsman 1740 crucible steel, first homogeneous steel in Europe
  • K14 confirmed The change at 730 to 760 °C for plain carbon steel; the shadow of decalescence; the magnet lets go at about the same heat
  • K16 confirmed Temper 200 °C two hours twice; light straw 200 °C at 60 HRC; bronze 240 a warning; 230 to 315 the brittle trough (TME); 345 and up grey-blue spring temper for axes, hoes …
  • K17 confirmed 1084 is 0.80 to 0.84 % carbon, hardens in fast oil from a plain forge with no soak; leaf spring 5160 about 0.6 % C with chromium, deeper hardening, slow oil, cracks in …
  • K18 confirmed "A hundred kilograms of 1084 is a generation of knives"
  • K19 confirmed The tongs: rule of 90 degrees, three set-downs, half-face blows, boss punched hot, mild rivet peened, joint freed at dull red, jaws closed round the stock; bars 12 to 14 …
  • K20 confirmed Forge 1084 and 5160 at orange-yellow 980 to 1,060 °C; stop at dull red 650
  • K21 confirmed Bevel forging curves the blade backward; edge left 1 mm ("a coin") before the quench or it ripples (bacon edge); pre-curve the tip upward in the last heat
  • K22 confirmed Normalise three times: 900, 815, 730 °C in still air; grain to a few thousandths of a millimetre; the triple quench is a myth that cracks blades
  • K26 confirmed Chef's knife: spine 2 to 2.5 mm, 1.0 to 1.1 mm at 10 mm, 0.1 to 0.2 mm behind the edge, 15 to 17° a side, slight convex with a shoulder 15 mm up; cleaver: 3.0 to 4.7 mm …
  • K27 confirmed Brandenburg sandstone Findlinge as 600 to 1,000 grit whetstones; water balance; chef's knife on to 3,000 grit, cleaver left toothy
  • K28 confirmed Sharpening motion: burr raised, chased over, removed; twelve strokes a side; the spine a finger's width off the stone for 15° on a chef's knife; monthly sharpening, …
  • K29 confirmed Scythe: thin web behind a rib; edge peened cold; steel like 1095 or 75Cr1 at 60 HRC, straw temper; three angles (hafting: tip 3 to 5 cm inside the heel's arc; lay; …
  • K30 unresolved The Austrian scythe valley: works in Upper Austria hammering blades since the 1500s; Europe mows with the Austrian scythe
  • K32 confirmed Broadfork: five tines of 5160, about 35 cm (14 in), constant radius, welded to a crossbar (38 mm square tube), spring temper grey-blue to about 50 HRC; the lower third …
  • K33 confirmed Grey iron 2.5 to 4 % C, 1 to 3 % Si, graphite flakes; melts about 1,200 °C, poured near 1,400
  • K36 confirmed Walls 3 mm sides, 4.5 to 5 mm base; iron let in at the rim, the thickest section, through several wide flat gates thinner than the wall; gating 1 : 0.9 : 0.8
  • K39 confirmed A clay-graphite crucible in a lined drum blown from below melts 20 kg of iron in an hour or two and burns about its own weight in charcoal
  • K40 confirmed A city's drawers hold steel that would cut for a century; a village that can sharpen needs no smith for a decade
  • K41 amended Rixdorfer Schmiede on the Richardplatz working since the 1600s and teaching; a smithy in a Pankow courtyard; a self-run metal shop in Treptow; a hook by evening, a knife …
  • K43 confirmed Peening: blows a millimetre apart, two passes, blade cold, morning; hone every few minutes in the field
  • K44 confirmed Pattern a hair larger for shrinkage with sloped sides; grey iron shrinks about 1 %
  • K46 confirmed Fork: 12 mm square spring steel, 150 mm handle, pad 40 × 50 × 3 mm, three slits 8 mm apart with a 2 mm chisel, 4 mm web, tines 4.5 mm drawn from 50 to 65 mm, tips …
  • K48 confirmed A table of twelve (12 knives, forks, soup spoons, dessert forks, dessert spoons, 260 mm chargers, butter plates, goblets, 4 serving spoons, 2 carving sets, 2 ladles) …
  • K49 confirmed Cooper's steels: froe 5160 at 48 to 50 HRC with a 30° edge, axe 22° at 56, hollowing knife W1 tempered 200 °C at 60, jointer 52100 at 60 to 62, croze 58, adze 54 to 56
  • W15 amended Copper conducts heat about 2× aluminium, 5× cast iron, 25× stainless
  • W18 confirmed Anneal at dull red about 600 °C (forge 600 to 800); water quench does not harden copper, spalls the black cupric oxide, red cuprous oxide remains; pickle in 10 % citric …
  • W19 confirmed Kreuzberg scrap dealers pay about 9.50 €/kg for clean pipe (Millberry 9.70)
  • W34 confirmed Species: apple, pear, cherry (antimicrobial, knife finish); birch the Scandinavian staple; sycamore the English treen wood (no taste); ash for handles; beech T/R 2.15 …
  • W35 confirmed Three tools: axe, straight knife at 25 to 27° single bevel, hook knife cutting no deeper than 1.5 mm (1/16 in); Wille Sundqvist taught for fifty years and forbade …
  • W40 confirmed Dutch beam 9 ft by 27 in square with iron hoops; wool bags in horsehair mats; hot iron plates; end-grain blocks; two wedges; stamper 150 kg from 1.2 m, about 1,765 J; 40 …
  • W46 confirmed Stones 300 to 500 mm, runner 20 to 50 kg; bedstone flat, runner slightly concave; eye gap 3 to 4 mm, rim near touching; harp of 8, 10 or 12 quarters with master, …
  • F55 confirmed Scythe: sickle→scythe 16th c., cradle c. 1800; blade 75–100 cm; grips hip/cubit; lay 2–3 cm; yellow ripeness 25–30 %; 0.4 ha/day; 20–40 h/ha vs combine; band twisted 2–3 …
  • A54 unresolved CMT: 3 % sodium lauryl sulphate + bromocresol purple, equal parts with 2 ml milk, swirl 10 s, scores 0/T/1/2/3, gel ≈ >310,000 cells/ml; udder paste turmeric-ginger-salt …
  • B34 confirmed Legging: ring at hock and knee, slit inside of legs, feet off at the break joint below the hock; fisting to keep the fell; knife edge to the hide; hide off the back last …
  • B35 confirmed Split with cleaver or 4-TPI bow saw from the tail down; head burned with the cord once tongue and cheeks are out
  • B45 confirmed Casings: small intestine ~20 m, stripped, turned over a stick under water, scraped with the back of a knife, rinsed, salted, keeps a year, soak an hour; Krause (large …
  • B55 confirmed Storage: stoneware crock with lid in the cellar, tallow a year, lard 6–9 months, salt layer on top; enemies light, warmth, air, iron/copper; rancid = paint smell, not …
  • B62 confirmed Turn list: bolt gun and 200 cartridges, sticking knife, bell scraper, gambrel, block and tackle, 40 m rope, bow saw, cleaver of Ch 3, thermometer, 40× hand lens, the …
  • E49 confirmed Gorge hook from bone or thorn, turns 90° in the gullet, last resort; hook forged from a nail
  • C17 confirmed A rat eats 6.5 kg of grain a year; rat incisors harder than iron, aluminium and any timber; a colony of twenty
  • M20 partly confirmed De Laval 1878; 6,000 rpm; hand crank 60 rpm through 100:1; Danish cooperatives within a decade; not forgeable in a village
  • D43 confirmed Copper strips sulphur compounds as black copper sulphide; a steel still makes a spirit that smells of the ferment
  • T13 confirmed Erasmus De civilitate morum puerilium 1530, written for Henry of Burgundy (aged 11), ~130 editions in a century, translated widely; rules quoted (reaching first, licking …
  • T14 confirmed Elias 1939 Über den Prozeß der Zivilisation: manners as internalised constraint; the knife rules; the reader's laughter as evidence
  • T15 confirmed Everyone carried their own knife to table; rules about pointing, passing handle first, not reaching across, not taking the piece a neighbour's hand is on
  • T16 confirmed 1669 French ordinance against pointed table knives (Louis XIV); Richelieu tooth-picking story probably apocryphal
  • T29 confirmed Clay tests: ribbon past 5 cm, ball survives a night in water (same as Ch 10's pond tests); processing by slaking, sieving, settling; 20 % sharp sand temper; wedging; …
  • T31 partly confirmed Pit fire: 50 cm deep, straw and dried dung packing, brushwood, turf or sheet-iron cover, pine as fuel, a day to burn and cool; expect ~half losses for a first batch
  • T46 confirmed A table of twelve in forged steel and pewter costs about 520 smith-hours and 340 kg charcoal
  • J23 confirmed 120's 156.5 h/yr split: daily wipe/oil 65 (0.18 h/day), charcoal 30, forging 15, handles 7.5, canner 1, barrels 4, field honing 15, peening 10, saw filing 9; sharpening …
  • J27 confirmed Lifespans: scythe 5–15 yr, axe head indefinite, barrel 10–30, cast iron until cracked; file 1–3 yr and not resharpenable; a homestead cannot cut hardened file teeth; …
  • J33 unresolved Brandenburg well water: iron-brown, hydrogen-sulphide smell from peat, varies over 100 m; stains linen; stand and pour off the top for washing
  • J35 partly confirmed 131's village: 60 households, 300 people, ~3,450 acres, five specialist households (smith, miller/baker, cheesemaker/herdsman, wright, forester/collier); surplus ratio …
  • J37 confirmed Book's own village of 300 on sand with modern seed: 75 × 1.5 ha = 112 ha arable/clover; 75 × 1.5 ha coppice = 112 ha + smith's 10; 80 ha Luch; oxen 10 ha; green, pond, …
  • J39 unresolved Order of specialists: herdsman (paid by the head, since settlement), miller, smith, cheesemaker (40 cows, 100 l/day), potter (Ch 17), cooper, wright, tanner (Ch 9), …
  • J45 confirmed Honest Broker's findings: 117 half-cited to library PDF 24, diet from fitness blogs, calories from a protein shop, pasture short for its goats at low yield; 131 from …
  • J9 partly confirmed Brandenburg villages sit on sand islands at the edge of the Luch; strips on the sand, common meadow below, one herd under one herdsman; the Angerdorf with green, pond …