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Under the heading 'ancient history of south asian production' reads: "In addition India's superior iron ore has trace vanadium and other rare earths which unintentionally leads to the formation of carbon nano tubes in Indian crucible steel which was famous throughout the middle east for its ability to retain its edge even after prolonged usage."
THe end of the third paragraph reads: "Modern methods instead remove carbon from the pig iron, due to its low cost." Someone please clarify, if able. Sfahey 14:49, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Suggest merge of blister steel into Crucible steel. The Crucible Steel article covers the subject better already. -- John Nagle 16:38, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
I continue to oppose the suggested merge. Blister steel was a distinct product which was made in its own right and continued to be made long alfter Huntsman discovered how to make crucible steel. However perhaps the article should become a redirect to cementation process. Having gained more experience as an editor, I have eliminated some fo the duplication that I complained of above, but there may still be more to be done. Peterkingiron 22:07, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I regret that I have been guilty of reinstating a note on what blister steel is, referring to a new articel on the cementation process. Contrary to what appeared when I stated, the cementation process (making blister steel) was not a derivative one from crucible steel production, but existed in its own right for 130 years before Huntsman's time. Furthermore, from his time, only some of the blister steel was melted in crucibles and cast. I therefore consider that the section on blister steel should NOT appear as part of an article on crucible steel; they are separate (and to some extent independent) processes. Nevertheless, I have left where it is for the moment, but would appreciate the views pf others. The raw material for crucible steel was blister steel. The raw material for blister steel was bar iron, usually Swedish oregrounds iron; this is NOT correctly described as 'ore'. I have not put sources here, as it is not my article, though I have where I have undertaken a substantial edit of that on the cementation process. Peterkingiron 20:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
I have tagged the above statement with "fact", because I think this requires evidence. It may be right, but there was also a noted steel-making centre at Merv in central Asia. Furthermore, it might be better to add detail to more detailed articles on Damascus steel and wootz. Peterkingiron ( talk) 19:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Exactly where the steel that the 'swords of Damascus' came from is unknown, but it was probably a crucible steel of some sort. Suitable steel was made in Sri Lanka, India, Merv and other areas nearby at the time. 77.99.255.242 ( talk) 21:33, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
This article was promarily about the commodity known as crucible steel in recent times. The massive recent expansion. without any discussion has conmpletely altered the balance of the article so that it is largely about medieval Asian production. I am not suggesting that the new material is wrong. What I am questioning is whether this artiucle is really the best place for it. We already have an article on Wootz and another on Damascus steel, I would respectively suggest that this is the proper place for the material, with appropriate links from the presnt article. The alternaive might be to merge those articles, but in that case the section on English crucible steel (from c.1740) would need to be greatly expanded to restore a proper balance. Peterkingiron ( talk) 16:47, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
This article contains statements not supported by Encyclopedia of the History of Technology and economic history. These sources only refer to what is called "English crucible steel" in this article. Also, photos in this article showing grain, unless they are microscopic, resemble a hammered steel (shear steel) and not a fused (melted) steel. Phmoreno ( talk) 00:34, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Update: After re-reading three sources, all are in agreement that crucible steel is made in crucibles and the process was invented by Benjamin Huntsman ca. 1740. Unless there is evidence that any ancient process (the descriptions of which are omitted here) used crucibles to melt steel, this material is not crucible steel. Unless someone can connect these processes to some way of melting steel, this material needs to be deleted. Phmoreno ( talk) 03:41, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
My sources are Landes (1969), McNeil (1990) and Misa (1995), so they won't include recent archaeological findings. The ancient Chinese did have a method of making steel by layering cast iron over stacks of wrought iron bars and applying heat. The cast iron, with its lower melting point, dripped down through the wrought iron, dissolving some of it, resulting in a lower carbon content. This is a completely different process, even if the resulting steel had similar properties. (It was tested in Germany quite a few decades ago.) The product would have been similar to crucible steel, but probably with more impurities, unless the cast iron had been previously refined. Phmoreno ( talk) 17:58, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
This article is just plain wrong. Crucible steel is a particular historical classification of steel type associated with a particular method of manufacture. Just because metal saw a crucible at some point does not make it crucible steel. One way to get around the confusion is to label the article "Crucible Process" instead of "Crucible Steel." That way no prior technical terms are being misused. The authors are also terribly confused about tool and high speed steels. Those are classifications of steel types that are still in use and those steel types are still available today. They have not been "supplanted" in any total sense. As newer materials have become available the use of particular steel types has shifted, narrowed or expanded but those steel types are still used for applications where their properties are more desirable than carbide. Just a few minutes research will show that a wide array of steels are currently available under those classifications and far from being some obsolescent materials they are utilized in new roles. Any reasonably capable person should be able to begin pondering this subject starting from a position of complete ignorance and gain enough information in half a day in order to write an article that is better and more accurate than this horrid article. This article is youtuber playing in the backyard stuff. Wretched. 184.45.21.70 ( talk) 14:12, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
Why do recent additions focus so much on the Bessemer process, which post-dates the advent of crucible steel in the UK by a century? It even goes into detail on basic vs acid Bessemer linings, which has even less relevance to crucible steel.
Last time I looked, Bessemer still hadn't replaced other processes for complex alloy steels, which is where the origins of the crucible process lie. Bessemer and oxygen converters are (AFAIK), still primarily the producers of bulk mild steel, not the high carbon and alloy steels that rely on open hearth and electric arc processes. Andy Dingley ( talk) 22:59, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
user:Phmoreno has added several inappropriate {{Disputed tag|talk=Crucible steel#Not in agreement with other sources}} tags, each paired with a (more reasonable) {{disputed-section|date=July 2014}}. I assume Phmoreno intended to provide a description of his concerns, and misused {{Disputed tag}} for that purpose. I have removed those, and added this section to discuss the {{Disputed-section}} for the reason "Not in agreement with other sources". As things stand, that comment seems inadequate to describe the problem. Rwessel ( talk) 00:26, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
Those sections are on processes that are called something other than crucible steel, so the question is: what's the relationship? Also, do we even know the processes these steel objects were made with? Phmoreno ( talk) 17:44, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
The material below was apparently originally a separate article that was merged here, but it doesn't seem to add much to the subject. It seems more relevant to the article Cementation process. Suggest a merge there or with main Steel article.
-- Coconutporkpie ( talk) 07:36, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
As a matter of fact, it seems pretty well covered at ferrous metallurgy already.
-- Coconutporkpie ( talk) 12:36, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
It was possible to produce quality steel in Europe, by importing the highly valued Swedish iron. Although it was not understood at the time, the Swedish ore contained very low levels of common impurities, leading to higher quality irons and steels from otherwise identical techniques applied to other ores. Swedish bar iron was packed into stone boxes in layers with charcoal in between them and heated in a furnace for an entire week. The result was a bar of metal known as blister steel – the surface of the bars became uneven from a multitude of blisters (or blebs) – which varied in quality from one bar to the next and within each bar. A number of blister rods were then wrapped into a larger bundle and re-heated and hammer- forged to mix together and even out the carbon content, resulting in the final product, shear steel. [2] Germany was particularly well invested in this process, largely due to being physically close to Sweden, and became a major steel exporter in the 18th century. citation needed The technique was the cementation process.
References
"Crucible steel has aroused considerable interest for well over a thousand years and there is a sizeable body of work concerning its nature and production. [1]"
I've moved this paragraph here from the lead section because it seems unnecessary. This article is about the material itself and its history, not the body of work surrounding it. I don't see anything in the rest of the article that this paragraph serves to summarize, and it doesn't give enough information itself: why has crucible steel "aroused considerable interest"?
-- Coconutporkpie ( talk) 11:39, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
References
Can anyone clarify exactly what is being disputed?
-- 82.164.6.47 ( talk) 21:48, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
Disputed may not be the most appropriate tag. It's not necessarily that the factual accuracy of these sections is disputed, but rather that their link to crucible steel is either not explained or doesn't exist. For comparison these processes need to be specified in detail: raw materials, furnace design, temperature, time, air supply, handling, batch size, etc. Also, these sections put too much emphasis on processes that have different names (Wootz steel, Damascus steel, ets.) than the article title. As previously discussed here, these other steel making techniques need to be in another article. Phmoreno ( talk) 11:52, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
Phmoreno ( talk) 03:48, 22 March 2015 (UTC)( talk) 01:56, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
We have a lot of information about archaeological iron and steel making without much discussion of the processes. This needs to be cut down to what is really on the topic of crucible steel with the process specifics so comparisons can be made. Also, care needs to be taken to not include crucible smelting, which is a separate process. Phmoreno ( talk) 03:47, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
This entry does not refer to a specific process, nor a specific result. Perhaps it should be folded into other articles and deleted.
The processes listed all have their own entry:
The example materials each have their entries
The historical references all have their own sections as well in the History of ferrous metallurgy page.
Perhaps it's time to nuke this page, or at least justify its existence. As far as I can find in the literature, crucible steel is mostly a synonym for blister steel, at least during the runup to the industrial revolution.
Riventree ( talk) 17:45, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
Actually a similar kind of steel was allready known during antiquity in Europe. The Celts produced this so called Noric Steel and it was fe. exported to the Roman Empire.-- 213.147.167.62 ( talk) 15:04, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
The early history section jumps back and forwards in time in a way that makes it hard to get any sense of the actual timeline of the development. The tense is also confusing in "Crucible steel is generally attributed to production centres in India and Sri Lanka ... and it is assumed that its appearance in other locations was due trade. Only recently it has become apparent that places in Central Asia like Merv in Turkmenistan and Akhsiket in Uzbekistan were important centres of production of crucible steel.". The first two "is" should presumably be "was", if the second sentence represents more accurate and up-to-date research. Iapetus ( talk) 16:42, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
I have a question about the last section, describing a Russian steel called bulat. Does anyone have a reference for this? The reason I ask is that the wording in that section seems confused. The section says molten steel was quenched when the proper crystal structure was reached. Since liquid steel has no crystal structure, I was wondering what this was supposed to mean. (I could see quenching molten steel producing a certain crystalline structure, but it would have to be contained in a vessel if liquid quenched or the violent reaction should leave a porous, lava-like mess.) Zaereth ( talk) 23:45, 15 November 2017 (UTC)
![]() | This article is written in British English, which has its own spelling conventions (colour, travelled, centre, defence, artefact, analyse) and some terms that are used in it may be different or absent from other varieties of English. According to the relevant style guide, this should not be changed without broad consensus. |
![]() | This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||
|
Under the heading 'ancient history of south asian production' reads: "In addition India's superior iron ore has trace vanadium and other rare earths which unintentionally leads to the formation of carbon nano tubes in Indian crucible steel which was famous throughout the middle east for its ability to retain its edge even after prolonged usage."
THe end of the third paragraph reads: "Modern methods instead remove carbon from the pig iron, due to its low cost." Someone please clarify, if able. Sfahey 14:49, 20 February 2006 (UTC)
Suggest merge of blister steel into Crucible steel. The Crucible Steel article covers the subject better already. -- John Nagle 16:38, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
I continue to oppose the suggested merge. Blister steel was a distinct product which was made in its own right and continued to be made long alfter Huntsman discovered how to make crucible steel. However perhaps the article should become a redirect to cementation process. Having gained more experience as an editor, I have eliminated some fo the duplication that I complained of above, but there may still be more to be done. Peterkingiron 22:07, 24 February 2007 (UTC)
I regret that I have been guilty of reinstating a note on what blister steel is, referring to a new articel on the cementation process. Contrary to what appeared when I stated, the cementation process (making blister steel) was not a derivative one from crucible steel production, but existed in its own right for 130 years before Huntsman's time. Furthermore, from his time, only some of the blister steel was melted in crucibles and cast. I therefore consider that the section on blister steel should NOT appear as part of an article on crucible steel; they are separate (and to some extent independent) processes. Nevertheless, I have left where it is for the moment, but would appreciate the views pf others. The raw material for crucible steel was blister steel. The raw material for blister steel was bar iron, usually Swedish oregrounds iron; this is NOT correctly described as 'ore'. I have not put sources here, as it is not my article, though I have where I have undertaken a substantial edit of that on the cementation process. Peterkingiron 20:25, 8 April 2006 (UTC)
I have tagged the above statement with "fact", because I think this requires evidence. It may be right, but there was also a noted steel-making centre at Merv in central Asia. Furthermore, it might be better to add detail to more detailed articles on Damascus steel and wootz. Peterkingiron ( talk) 19:28, 28 February 2008 (UTC)
Exactly where the steel that the 'swords of Damascus' came from is unknown, but it was probably a crucible steel of some sort. Suitable steel was made in Sri Lanka, India, Merv and other areas nearby at the time. 77.99.255.242 ( talk) 21:33, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
This article was promarily about the commodity known as crucible steel in recent times. The massive recent expansion. without any discussion has conmpletely altered the balance of the article so that it is largely about medieval Asian production. I am not suggesting that the new material is wrong. What I am questioning is whether this artiucle is really the best place for it. We already have an article on Wootz and another on Damascus steel, I would respectively suggest that this is the proper place for the material, with appropriate links from the presnt article. The alternaive might be to merge those articles, but in that case the section on English crucible steel (from c.1740) would need to be greatly expanded to restore a proper balance. Peterkingiron ( talk) 16:47, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
This article contains statements not supported by Encyclopedia of the History of Technology and economic history. These sources only refer to what is called "English crucible steel" in this article. Also, photos in this article showing grain, unless they are microscopic, resemble a hammered steel (shear steel) and not a fused (melted) steel. Phmoreno ( talk) 00:34, 10 November 2012 (UTC)
Update: After re-reading three sources, all are in agreement that crucible steel is made in crucibles and the process was invented by Benjamin Huntsman ca. 1740. Unless there is evidence that any ancient process (the descriptions of which are omitted here) used crucibles to melt steel, this material is not crucible steel. Unless someone can connect these processes to some way of melting steel, this material needs to be deleted. Phmoreno ( talk) 03:41, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
My sources are Landes (1969), McNeil (1990) and Misa (1995), so they won't include recent archaeological findings. The ancient Chinese did have a method of making steel by layering cast iron over stacks of wrought iron bars and applying heat. The cast iron, with its lower melting point, dripped down through the wrought iron, dissolving some of it, resulting in a lower carbon content. This is a completely different process, even if the resulting steel had similar properties. (It was tested in Germany quite a few decades ago.) The product would have been similar to crucible steel, but probably with more impurities, unless the cast iron had been previously refined. Phmoreno ( talk) 17:58, 13 August 2014 (UTC)
This article is just plain wrong. Crucible steel is a particular historical classification of steel type associated with a particular method of manufacture. Just because metal saw a crucible at some point does not make it crucible steel. One way to get around the confusion is to label the article "Crucible Process" instead of "Crucible Steel." That way no prior technical terms are being misused. The authors are also terribly confused about tool and high speed steels. Those are classifications of steel types that are still in use and those steel types are still available today. They have not been "supplanted" in any total sense. As newer materials have become available the use of particular steel types has shifted, narrowed or expanded but those steel types are still used for applications where their properties are more desirable than carbide. Just a few minutes research will show that a wide array of steels are currently available under those classifications and far from being some obsolescent materials they are utilized in new roles. Any reasonably capable person should be able to begin pondering this subject starting from a position of complete ignorance and gain enough information in half a day in order to write an article that is better and more accurate than this horrid article. This article is youtuber playing in the backyard stuff. Wretched. 184.45.21.70 ( talk) 14:12, 30 April 2016 (UTC)
Why do recent additions focus so much on the Bessemer process, which post-dates the advent of crucible steel in the UK by a century? It even goes into detail on basic vs acid Bessemer linings, which has even less relevance to crucible steel.
Last time I looked, Bessemer still hadn't replaced other processes for complex alloy steels, which is where the origins of the crucible process lie. Bessemer and oxygen converters are (AFAIK), still primarily the producers of bulk mild steel, not the high carbon and alloy steels that rely on open hearth and electric arc processes. Andy Dingley ( talk) 22:59, 28 March 2013 (UTC)
user:Phmoreno has added several inappropriate {{Disputed tag|talk=Crucible steel#Not in agreement with other sources}} tags, each paired with a (more reasonable) {{disputed-section|date=July 2014}}. I assume Phmoreno intended to provide a description of his concerns, and misused {{Disputed tag}} for that purpose. I have removed those, and added this section to discuss the {{Disputed-section}} for the reason "Not in agreement with other sources". As things stand, that comment seems inadequate to describe the problem. Rwessel ( talk) 00:26, 22 August 2014 (UTC)
Those sections are on processes that are called something other than crucible steel, so the question is: what's the relationship? Also, do we even know the processes these steel objects were made with? Phmoreno ( talk) 17:44, 14 March 2015 (UTC)
The material below was apparently originally a separate article that was merged here, but it doesn't seem to add much to the subject. It seems more relevant to the article Cementation process. Suggest a merge there or with main Steel article.
-- Coconutporkpie ( talk) 07:36, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
As a matter of fact, it seems pretty well covered at ferrous metallurgy already.
-- Coconutporkpie ( talk) 12:36, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
It was possible to produce quality steel in Europe, by importing the highly valued Swedish iron. Although it was not understood at the time, the Swedish ore contained very low levels of common impurities, leading to higher quality irons and steels from otherwise identical techniques applied to other ores. Swedish bar iron was packed into stone boxes in layers with charcoal in between them and heated in a furnace for an entire week. The result was a bar of metal known as blister steel – the surface of the bars became uneven from a multitude of blisters (or blebs) – which varied in quality from one bar to the next and within each bar. A number of blister rods were then wrapped into a larger bundle and re-heated and hammer- forged to mix together and even out the carbon content, resulting in the final product, shear steel. [2] Germany was particularly well invested in this process, largely due to being physically close to Sweden, and became a major steel exporter in the 18th century. citation needed The technique was the cementation process.
References
"Crucible steel has aroused considerable interest for well over a thousand years and there is a sizeable body of work concerning its nature and production. [1]"
I've moved this paragraph here from the lead section because it seems unnecessary. This article is about the material itself and its history, not the body of work surrounding it. I don't see anything in the rest of the article that this paragraph serves to summarize, and it doesn't give enough information itself: why has crucible steel "aroused considerable interest"?
-- Coconutporkpie ( talk) 11:39, 19 November 2014 (UTC)
References
Can anyone clarify exactly what is being disputed?
-- 82.164.6.47 ( talk) 21:48, 12 March 2015 (UTC)
Disputed may not be the most appropriate tag. It's not necessarily that the factual accuracy of these sections is disputed, but rather that their link to crucible steel is either not explained or doesn't exist. For comparison these processes need to be specified in detail: raw materials, furnace design, temperature, time, air supply, handling, batch size, etc. Also, these sections put too much emphasis on processes that have different names (Wootz steel, Damascus steel, ets.) than the article title. As previously discussed here, these other steel making techniques need to be in another article. Phmoreno ( talk) 11:52, 13 March 2015 (UTC)
Phmoreno ( talk) 03:48, 22 March 2015 (UTC)( talk) 01:56, 18 March 2015 (UTC)
We have a lot of information about archaeological iron and steel making without much discussion of the processes. This needs to be cut down to what is really on the topic of crucible steel with the process specifics so comparisons can be made. Also, care needs to be taken to not include crucible smelting, which is a separate process. Phmoreno ( talk) 03:47, 22 March 2015 (UTC)
This entry does not refer to a specific process, nor a specific result. Perhaps it should be folded into other articles and deleted.
The processes listed all have their own entry:
The example materials each have their entries
The historical references all have their own sections as well in the History of ferrous metallurgy page.
Perhaps it's time to nuke this page, or at least justify its existence. As far as I can find in the literature, crucible steel is mostly a synonym for blister steel, at least during the runup to the industrial revolution.
Riventree ( talk) 17:45, 13 June 2016 (UTC)
Actually a similar kind of steel was allready known during antiquity in Europe. The Celts produced this so called Noric Steel and it was fe. exported to the Roman Empire.-- 213.147.167.62 ( talk) 15:04, 1 November 2016 (UTC)
The early history section jumps back and forwards in time in a way that makes it hard to get any sense of the actual timeline of the development. The tense is also confusing in "Crucible steel is generally attributed to production centres in India and Sri Lanka ... and it is assumed that its appearance in other locations was due trade. Only recently it has become apparent that places in Central Asia like Merv in Turkmenistan and Akhsiket in Uzbekistan were important centres of production of crucible steel.". The first two "is" should presumably be "was", if the second sentence represents more accurate and up-to-date research. Iapetus ( talk) 16:42, 10 March 2017 (UTC)
I have a question about the last section, describing a Russian steel called bulat. Does anyone have a reference for this? The reason I ask is that the wording in that section seems confused. The section says molten steel was quenched when the proper crystal structure was reached. Since liquid steel has no crystal structure, I was wondering what this was supposed to mean. (I could see quenching molten steel producing a certain crystalline structure, but it would have to be contained in a vessel if liquid quenched or the violent reaction should leave a porous, lava-like mess.) Zaereth ( talk) 23:45, 15 November 2017 (UTC)