The first shear steel was made in Sheffield, England in the 1700's. My understanding is rods of blister steel were bundled up, mixed with charcoal and then heated for days. After that was done the mass was forge welded together using a huge watered powered trip hammer. The steel was used to make knife and saw blades. The steel that I have been using was at one time a very old rusty lumbermill circular saw blade. Most of my life I worked as a carpenter and I happened to walk past a load of sand fill and I spotted what was a chunk of old saw steel sticking out of the sand. I took it home as a suvenier and it sat out in my barn for years untill I decided to try making some knife blades out of it. Actually when you come right down to it its industrialized damascus steel.
