New book “The Story of Knife Steel” by Dr. Larrin Thomas

[The Mastiff]

Tritium is used now on watches. It is contained in tiny glass vials and therefore a lot safer for watch makers. The dial painting young women who got radium poisoning were putting the brushes in their mouths to shape the brush tip for a fine point and that is what did a lot of the damage. The teeth brushing thing is supposedly true also as Grendels stated. A couple had their lower jaws rot off and some just lost teeth and gums. It was pretty horrible. There are still pictures around of some of them but it's not really something I recommend looking up. I have a book around here somewhere called "Radium Girls" or something like that. I didn't finish it.

 

[Dr Rez]

They're still using tritium for permanent glow in the dark materials. It sounds crazy, but if I had a certain amount of compasses in a truck, I would have to display a radioactive warning panel, as per the Dangerous Goods course.

Back then, they were using unsafe levels of radium and flappers were brushing their teeth with it, for glow in the dark smiles...

Its exceedingly common for night sights on handguns. Sometimes as cheap as 40 bucks a set.

 

[A.L.]

edit: nevermind

 

[Matthew Gregory]

Was really hoping to see some more posts from people that have gotten some time into the book (looking at you, Richard338 ).

Not that I’m expecting anyone to have run through it entirely, this early…





…except Richard338


I’m not mad, just let down.

 

[Larrin]

And we need more Amazon reviews!

 

[Richard338]

Was really hoping to see some more posts from people that have gotten some time into the book (looking at you, Richard338 ).

Not that I’m expecting anyone to have run through it entirely, this early…





…except Richard338


I’m not mad, just let down.

I have a 6th sense about overdue homework and got well into it last night. I'll post some comments over the weekend.

 

[stabman]

My personal favorite from page 68…

Now all I can think of is how sad it is that I cannot get a knife made out of Uranium steel.

 

[Matthew Gregory]

I have a 6th sense about overdue homework and got well into it last night. I'll post some comments over the weekend.

I knew you’d come through. You’re a good egg, my friend. I take back most of what I said about you.

 

[Matthew Gregory]

I’m dragging this thread back up from the depths, partially because I want to hear what others think about the book, and partially because I dragged through it countless times during proofreading and want to know that my suffering was worth it.

Anybody read through this tome, yet?

 

[madcap_magician]

Ordered!

 

[madcap_magician]

“The smile that won’t come off”



Jeeeeeezuz

Yeahhhh that one mighta aged poorly...

 

[Kettleman]

I’m dragging this thread back up from the depths, partially because I want to hear what others think about the book, and partially because I dragged through it countless times during proofreading and want to know that my suffering was worth it.

Anybody read through this tome, yet?

I have have it downloaded to my work iPad and read a few pages during lunch. Never thought I would find the subject this interesting.

 

[The Grendels]

I’m dragging this thread back up from the depths, partially because I want to hear what others think about the book, and partially because I dragged through it countless times during proofreading and want to know that my suffering was worth it.

Anybody read through this tome, yet?

I ordered it and it's arrived, but at any given time I have about a hundred or so unread books (all non-fiction), more arriving all the time, and some exceptionally well written books that don't get read for 5-10 years. Because of how good Larrin Thomas' Knife Engineering was though, it's near the top of my reading list. I'll probably be reading it within the next month or possibly earlier.

 

[The Grendels]

Delete double post.

 

[Larrin]

The feedback I have gotten has been good but for how many copies have sold it’s been a pretty small number. Only 39 ratings on Amazon and less than half of those had written reviews. I was hoping to hear more from people about the insights they had on knife and steel history.

 

[TimButterfield]

Larrin I saw the PDF file on your site, but those don't reformat for screen size. Please consider adding an ePub and/or Kindle version. Thanks.

 

[Richard338]

I made a first pass through the book and will share a few comments.

As a chemist I was interested to read about the role of Faraday in early alloy experimentation, which I was not aware of and I don’t think is well-known among chemists.

The most thought-provoking section for me was some of the early industrial history (1800s). I think this is because the research I do is fundamental and far removed from translation into useful materials or devices. For the steel industry at that time, the direct and rapid link between discovery and industrial application and patenting was remarkable, happening at a furious pace. It was interesting to read about Mushet in the 1860s, despite having more than 40 patents, delaying or neglecting filing additional patents to avoid disclosing processes. Any improvement soon found its way into newly marketed steel.

It was interesting to read about the huge excitement generated by high speed steel which we now take for granted.

Marble and his outdoorsman products is an interesting section. Many individuals and companies are discussed throughout.

I found remarkable the importance of the auto industry in steel development.

I liked the stories about Randall and his early models, and the one about Loveless meeting Paul Bos after arriving by landing his plane in a field. I didn’t realize how dominant Bos had been at one time, performing the heat treatment for the majority of custom makers.

The schematics of damascus construction processes for various patterns are interesting as is the variety of examples shown, some of which I hadn’t seen before.

Overall a great book, I'm sure I'll make another pass.

As promised I caught a typo that slipped past Matthew Gregory . "Warenski" of all people on page 149.

 

[BJE]

Just ordered a copy myself

 

[Matthew Gregory]

As promised I caught a typo that slipped past Matthew Gregory . "Warenski" of all people on page 149.

Ugh.

I have shame.

 

[Larrin]

I made a first pass through the book and will share a few comments.

As a chemist I was interested to read about the role of Faraday in early alloy experimentation, which I was not aware of and I don’t think is well-known among chemists.

The most thought-provoking section for me was some of the early industrial history (1800s). I think this is because the research I do is fundamental and far removed from translation into useful materials or devices. For the steel industry at that time, the direct and rapid link between discovery and industrial application and patenting was remarkable, happening at a furious pace. It was interesting to read about Mushet in the 1860s, despite having more than 40 patents, delaying or neglecting filing additional patents to avoid disclosing processes. Any improvement soon found its way into newly marketed steel.

It was interesting to read about the huge excitement generated by high speed steel which we now take for granted.

Marble and his outdoorsman products is an interesting section. Many individuals and companies are discussed throughout.

I found remarkable the importance of the auto industry in steel development.

I liked the stories about Randall and his early models, and the one about Loveless meeting Paul Bos after arriving by landing his plane in a field. I didn’t realize how dominant Bos had been at one time, performing the heat treatment for the majority of custom makers.

The schematics of damascus construction processes for various patterns are interesting as is the variety of examples shown, some of which I hadn’t seen before.

Overall a great book, I'm sure I'll make another pass.

As promised I caught a typo that slipped past Matthew Gregory . "Warenski" of all people on page 149.

Thanks for the review, Richard!