Just read that document, I like this paragraph in particular.

Don said: "It would appear, at least superficially, that the only
thing that distinguishes the Japanese plane irons from the L-N metal,
say, or for that matter the Japanese chisel from most of the chisels we
can buy at the fine western tool store, is the fact that they are
laminated, with the attendant possibility that the Japanese might be
able to get them a little harder, sharper, more brittle, because of the
soft back."

And the rest of the article was excellent. Thanks Roger.

Stephen

I liked Jim's point that a lot more was going on than just lamination:
a) Higher carbon steel
b) Hot working
c) More complex heat treating

It seems to me that these techniques to improve the steel go hand in hand with lamination, i.e. forge welding = more hot working = finer grain size.

I don't know if the brine quench is the smoking gun here, but certainly a thin piece of cutting material added to a soft holder (not unlike a modern metal lathe cutter, or perhaps a carbide tipped saw (I appologize for using such language) worked for centuries.

I have always contended the older blades were harder, kept a better edge and had less chatter than the newer solid steel blades.

I have an 1/8th inch plough plane iron that was bent when I bought it, the steel was fractured across and through, but the wrought iron kept it together, I bent it straight and it works just fine.

I have a solid steel 1/4 inch socket chisel and when it snapped in half, I had a short socket chisel and a blade for my old woman's tooth router plane.

Stephen

Proud to graduate to Joynter

Wiley_Horne wrote:

Hi Roger and All, ...We know that people paid more for double-iron planes, just like they did for solid steel chisel offerings in the L&IJ White catalog (is there a comparison of the single vs. double-iron planes in the same catalog?). Anyway, my experience in life has been that industries come to turning points, or reach tipping points, where everything changes for reasons that are not totally clear. A new thing comes out which supercedes and outsells the old thing. ... Wiley

These 'old' manufacturers were businessmen. The Whites remained in business as a family owned enterprise for a great many years. They certainly knew how to market their wares. Let's say a laid chisel cost more to make in man-hours than a cast chisel. But there may have been a preference amongst tradesmen for the cast chisel over the laid chisel. So the cast chisel was priced higher.

Trade catalogs were first and foremost a means to advertise the makers wares to local retail/wholesale merchants. In the late 19th C, pocket catalogs with retail prices began to be distributed directly to consumers. Either way, the wiley (no pun intended) manufacturer knew how to make the most of the goods.

I suppose it was ever so in the case of merchandizing. When music was available on both cassette tape and CD formats, the CD's were priced at a premium even though they cost less to produce.

Wiley_Horne wrote:

The hypothesis I'm working on is that fine grain and carbide density/distribution can permit very hard and abrasive-resistant blades to be as tough as less-hard and less-carbide-dense commercial blades. The null hypothesis is that it's not so. I have a sneaking hunch that somewhere, sometime, someone must have already looked into this. But the only published test I can find is Stankus' FWW magazine article in March, 1985. His findings are the basis for my hypothesis. Anyone have any other data? Maybe those two guys at Stanford got into this.

As I had mentioned over on WoodCentral, the only comparative data that I wasn't able to find for ultrahigh carbon steel was abrasion resistance, unless there's a way to derive abrasion resistance from some of the data presented in the Wadsworth-Sherby paper. I think it's clear that quality forged UHCS has superior Rockwell hardness and grain size characteristics to A2 and powdered metal technology steels (CPM 3V), at least if I'm doing the ASTM number to grain particle diameter conversion correctly.

Wiley, if you're able to get this project dune, that will be a real coup!

Wiley_Horne wrote:

A2 steel has pretty much taken over from O1 in commercial blades. Is A2 better? It costs more in the catalogs--people pay more for it. Is that proof? We're talking about chisels that need to be sharpened at 35 degrees. And then the old product that is superceded changes in character also: Once A2 begins to dominate, the industrial effort bends to strengthen its position and straight high carbon has lost its position and becomes a backwater, with little new investment or research going into it.

Betamax vs. VHS all over again.

I've found some materials that may be more relevant to our discussion of tools.

Ancient and Modern Laminate Composites has some information that I think is very helpful in understanding what is gained by creating a laminate composite.

Also see Ancient Blacksmiths

I hope everyone else finds them interesting.

Roger,

Great documents, I am about half way through one of them, wonderful stuff, I will finish reading them soon. This stuff is informative.

I have recently come across some information about the price of iron and steel in the 19 century and put it on my blog and I believe it puts some perspective to this discussion, at least about economy.

Stephen

Wiley said, "Isn't there a legendary story from antiquity where folks were arguing about how many teeth the horse had, and finally someone went and wedged a horse's mouth open, and counted them."

Not even antiquity. In the early 20th century, German class structures were very strong: engineers thought; mechanics got greasy. The story goes that a bunch of engineers were standing around a car that wasn't quite working right, arguing about what was wrong and getting nowhere; and finally, the young Ferdinand Porsche (THAT Porsche, for non-car folks) crawled under the car to look, to the absolute horror of his elders.

Originally Laid on blades used blister steel for the cutting edge. High Quality Wrought Iron was packed in Carbon (bone fragments, charcoal dust, etc) in a sealed container and heated for a very lengthy time in a hot furnace, the resulting carbon was formed as blisters on the outside of the Wrought and subsequently worked in by forging and dispersed by folding and welding several times (Damascus). The it was found that by remelting the Blister Steel the carbon could be amalgamated into the Wrought by cutting into small pieces and remelting the whole thing into what was called Cast Steel. But I am with Stephen on this one, laid on blades have much superior cutting edges.

Just my $.02 worth.

I have made a few laid on tools, and I just forge weld spring steel to wagon tire iron or mild steel. You have to preheat the base metal to a high heat before fluxing and laying on the spring steel and keep the wrought side down toward the fire as the high carbon steel melts at a lower temperature and there is the chance of burning it, which more or less destroys it as a cutting edge making it very brittle.