Making Tool Steel

Tom Gardner · 2005-02-10T14:50:51+00:00

I'm reading an interesting novel about the island of Nantucket getting transported back in time to 1200 BC. (Island in the sea of time) The residence have to gear their technology back quite a bit, understandably. One of the first things they do is organize the hobby machinists into an industry to produce necessities and trade goods. Machine shop heroes! One big problem looming is the finite supply of tool steel and cutting tools. How would someone with such limited resources make small quantities of serviceable tool steel cutting tools? They have plenty of mild steel from boats and cars.

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DoN. Nichols 21 years ago

The main hobby machinist was patterned after a real hobby machinist, who at that time lived on Nantucket. (He actually just moved to Maine in the last year.)

They also have as a resource a sail-powered Coast Guard training ship, which proves to be an invaluable resource, and the massive forests on the mainland to serve as materials for building more sailing ships.

I won't bother to give away too much, as the story continues beyond that single book.

In any case -- it is a wonderful read for anyone in this newsgroup.

Enjoy, DoN.

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DoN. Nichols 21 years ago

[ ... ]

Read the book! It is an excellent read, and I don't want to give away too much of what is done there.

Enjoy, DoN.

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Don Foreman 21 years ago

I'll be looking for that book next visit to Borders.

Tool steel is merely carbon steel harder than the material it must cut for long enough to do the job at cutting speed that doesn't overheat it. Any steel can be made thus hard in a charcoal fire, case-hardened with bone meal in a muffle. The result can be harder and sharper than HSS tooling. It's LSS, works just fine.

High Speed Steel can take more heat than tool steel so it can take higher speed and feed. But high speed is not necessary to make goods. High speed in 1200 BC? How fast could they pedal or crank?

>

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Harold and Susan Vordos 21 years ago

Thanks for the links, Tom.

Harold

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Harold and Susan Vordos 21 years ago

I fully agree. Harold

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Harold and Susan Vordos 21 years ago

Actually accomplished quite satisfactorily by any source of carbon, it need not be bone meal. In commercial operations, it's often done with atmosphere, simply by providing too much fuel. For pack hardening, carbonized peach pits are often used.

The result can be harder

If you've never tried carbon steel for machining, especially if you're running reasonably modern machines, you'll never know the frustration that comes with its use. Once you're used to the performance level of HSS, it's nearly impossible to revert to lesser cutting tools. It seems so unnatural to cut so slowly------but then perhaps for many of the home shop types, that isn't a problem. Having worked in industry, it drives me nuts! I own a 1-1/8" carbon steel drill, purchased for a buck at a flea market. Absolutely worthless for anything but non-ferrous use.

Harold

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Don Foreman 21 years ago

Right, but man has known how to make carbon steel for hundreds of years, long before machines went any faster than one could turn a crank by hand or with oxen.

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Lew Hartswick 21 years ago

SNip

OK just what is the name of this book?

...lew...

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M 21 years ago

The one exception to this might be carbon steel hand taps. Since they rarely get hot, they wear as well as the more expensive HSS ones.

Mark

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Tom 21 years ago

A short history of HSS:

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Stellite came quite a time later:

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Tom

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Rick Cook 21 years ago

That's Steve Stirling's "Island in the Sea of Time".

Most of what Steve writes is good -- although most of it isn't nearly as technically oriented. His real interest is history, especially military history, and it comes out in a lot of alternate universe stories.

I had dinner one time with him and Harry Turtledove and we got off on these history and alternate history themes -- and what a rat Roger Zelazny was for not finishing the "Amber" series. It was a fascinating dinner, especially since unbeknownst to Steve and Harry, Roger Zelazny was sitting one table over.

If you like "Island", you'd probably also like Eric Flint's "1632", "1633" and "1634" The Galileo Affair" about a West Virginia coal mining town tossed back into Germany in the middle of the 30 Years War.

Have you every considered what a modern boring machine would do for the accuracy and power of 17th Century cannon? Or how to build an airplane out of what's just lying around?

--RC

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