[TheForge] Cheese is cold-short!

[newenglandforge at aol.com]

The Elements added to the molten iron/steel are not impurities, they are called alloys and added usually as ferro-alloys (pre-bonded to iron) once the metal is fully melted (else they often burn off if added early on).  Any "impurities" are skimmed off with the flux/slag that is floated on top of the melt and as  Michael Spencer mentioned some mills perform vacuum degassing to remove hydrogen and other gasses from the molten metal.
The low melting temperature elements like gold and silver were not alloyed, and the given the propensity of elements to bond together when melted, it was not difficult to obtain those elements in there near pure form.  I am by no means a history expert, but my understanding is that the Celts evolved around 500 BCE in the area around the upper Danube, so after the bronze-age, and at the beginning of the iron age, so you may want to give credit to others for the early production of these metals.
I heard an interesting lecture by a woman metallurgist/historian from M.I.T. who studied the early discovery, smelting and uses of metal, and she found that early metal making evolved almost simultaneously in both Mesopotamia and Central America - figure that out.  The other interesting thing was that the smiths in Mesopotamia immediately made weapons from the metals, whereas the Central American peoples made jewelry.  
I regret that at age 76, I am also no longer forging metal for fun, but my company does produce forged rolls for the metals industry, so I remain close to the industry and metal production here and in Europe.  
Good luck with your jewelry pursuits.Mike Schermerhorn//Boston
-----Original Message-----
From: terry l. ridder <terrylr at blauedonau.com>and
To: newenglandforge <newenglandforge at aol.com>; Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sun, Mar 3, 2019 10:21 am
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Cheese is cold-short!

hello

the modern metals are engineered by adding various "impurities". These 
are known impurities and the characteristic that they add to the
majority metal is assumed to be known.

The Celts and other past civilizations had a limited knowledge of the
elements and the chemistry of them. They knew of sulfur but they may not
have understood what the addition of sulfur did to the iron, tin, zinc
or nickel that they were currently working.

Given the Celts, Norse and others limited knowledge the quality of the
metals that they did produce are of amazing high quality. How did they
manage that?

My ability to actively engage in heavy metal working is gone.
I am having to learn about goldsmithing and silversmith.

On Sun, 3 Mar 2019, Michael via TheForge wrote:

> Terry, I am curious about your post; "given the impurities in modern
> day metals". Could you please explain what impurities you speak of.
> Today's steels, all 300 plus grades are each designed for specific
> purposes and/or to solve specific industry problems either in the
> fabrication or end use of the material. There are some producers
> (India for example) that make what I would call "coat hanger quality"
> but indeed there is a market for this low grade/low cost material.
> Where do you purchase your steel for your forge? There is no such crap
> produced in the US, nor Canada or Mexico. Tool steels and high speed
> steels are the best ever, and the new powder-melt grades can consistently
> obtain a hardness of RC 70! Yes, these are expensive but the purity
> is near absolute. In the hay-day of blacksmithing we were using wrought
> iron as our standard product, not exactly what you would call clean
> nor free of impurities.
> Your question about why iron, gold and silver (and copper) could be
> produced at high quality levels is because those are all elements,
> not alloys, and that is where the difficulties exist. When alloying
> steel for example, problems arise when the metal is teamed into the
> ingot molds and the alloying elements segregate from the iron and
> "clump" together - segregation, requiring lengthy soaking at heat
> to return them to a homogeneous state. Modern producers have learned
> how to electro-magnetically stir the molten metal while still in the
> ladle or tundish which is also helpful to avoid segregation.
> Regrettably, there are not enough blacksmiths these days for the
> industry to pay any attention to us as we don't purchase a measurable
> amount of steel, i.e. last year worldwide the steel industry produced
> roughly 1.7 Billion tonnes of steel. So if you took the total amount
> of steel that you as a smith purchased last year, and multiplied that
> amount by the number of blacksmiths world wide, you would see that we
> do not represent a market of interest.
> So, what can be said is that you get what you pay for, same as ever,
> and as far as your yearning for the quality of yesterday is concerned,
> had the White Star Lines purchased decent quality steels of that
> period, instead of the extremely poor quality blister steel from the
> "low cost bidder", most marine engineers agree that the Titanic it
> would not have sunk.
Mike SchermerhornBoston
----Original Message-----
From: terry l. ridder <terrylr at blauedonau.com>
To: Blacksmithing List Sponsored by ABANA <theforge at mailman.qth.net>
Sent: Sat, Mar 2, 2019 6:05 pm
Subject: Re: [TheForge] Cheese is cold-short!

hello

given the impurities in modern day metals; how did the Celts, Norse, etc
manage to create any metal of any reasonable purity?
the Gold and Silver artifacts appear to be high purity metals.
The Iron swords, spear heads, etc do not exhibit any large degree of
impurities.

How were the Celts able to make iron enough in order to make weapons?
They also made tools, single head axe, hatchets, meat hooks, chains.

I am still trying to figure out how they smelted copper in such quanity
to construct these large cauldrins and vats.

On Sat, 2 Mar 2019, Dave Smucker wrote:

> Even with chip breakers these steels with sulfur and also lead really
> improve high speed machining. For many products this is very big cost
> saving. These steels don't forge well, nor do they weld (arc) well either.
> Locally we can get free drops from a company making items for Snap On
> but it not worth working with even if it is free. Most of these steels
> I have seen are sold as bar stock for use in high speed machine centers
> or screw machine lathes.
>
> Dave Smucker
> Brasstown, NC
>

-- 
terry l. ridder ><>