- Joined
- Sep 9, 2003
- Messages
- 2,361
in your craw!
There are a whole bunch of terms that get thrown about in the industry that make so little sense that you have to wonder how they came up with it. Some have become clichéd catch phrases that we use without even thinking about it. Here are a few that always make me think, did you even think about what you were saying before using that term?:
razor sharp
this is one of the worse. Apparently anything with and edge on it can be "razor" sharp. I often hear swords called "razor" sharp... you couldn't give me a swords that had and edge geometry like a razor. Even blades that easily shave hair from your arm are not "razor" sharp. Razors are entirely different beasts from other blades they have an incredibly specialized edge an edge that is good for removing hair wile leaving the skin in a healthy condition. This one is bad and used so often we don't even think about how bad it is.
Surgical steel What specific alloy is it that surgeons prefer?
Sheffield steel If I went to Sheffield to do a bloomery smelt would my steel automatically the best? Could I call it "Sheffield steel"? Come to think of it Ann Sheffield sells steel doesn't she? Hmmm... she may have something there. Ann wouldn't go there, she is good people, and one of my favorite vendors, but could I buy any of her offerings and say that my blades are made from "Sheffield steel"? Sheffield is just a town, I am sure a lot of steel was made there; some good, some not so good, but the word alone is all that seems to matter.
Spring steel Though many would like to think that this means 5160 since all springs are made from it, that is wrong. There a lists that classify different alloys as "spring steel" but I doubt you would find independent lists that were identical, since a spring can be made from any steel you want, good springs will use steel with proper fatigue strength but who says all manufactures care more about this than cost of production. Spring steel is what you make it into, not the alloy you start with, and the term has been so widely used we don't really get it anymore.
Heating the blade and plunging into water is "tempering"
grrrrrrr! This is so dead wrong and it will not go away! And looking at the etymology I don't think history supports this at all. We tend to think that this is just an obsolete term thing but I don't believe it. I think dunderheads outside of the industry trying to explain a process they did not understand to public mislabeled this in the not too distant past. I would be inclined to think that this bit of hogwash got put into the popular lexicon in the Victorian period when so much information and history was rewritten with all sorts of erroneous facts that were taken as definitive.
martempering Aside from some subsequent auto-tempering effect this is a QUENCHING operation, tempering comes afterwards, at least it had better or you are going to have problems. This one is hard to go against since industry and the metallurgical field has embraced it- so it must be right! Apparently the industry had already fallen victim to the "temper" thing from the paragraph above and continued on with the error.
Damascus steel. Damascus is a town in Syria that is it. It is not wootz anymore than it is folded and welded material. Would be elitists will quickly try to impress with their knowledge on the subject by correcting you that damascus steel is wootz, but the stuff wasn’t made in Damascus, and the people who made didn’t call it Damascus, in fact they apparently didn’t even call it “wootz”. Somebody like Ann Feuerbach could list many names that were used to describe crucible steel in ancient times, but wootz isn’t one of them. It appears to be corruption of one of those more ancient terms, kind of like damascene becoming simply “Damascus”. Languages grow and evolve anything with an intricate pattern put into it was called damask, or damascened in the not too distant past, we have corrupted it quite recently. In the most common use of the word in the English language any steel with patterning in it could be called Damascus, heck a busy herring bone inlay could be “damascened”. Within this description you have pattern welding, crucible steel and others. 50 years ago if I told somebody they looked “gay” they would have replied that it was indeed a good day, today I had better be ready to duck! Languages evolve and change, their purpose is to communicate, when sticking to old, outdated terms defeats this purpose you need to roll with it and move on or you will spend every moment giving an etymological lesson to folks who don’t really care. That is why I call pattern welded or wootz “ Damascus”
So what about it? What are some terms that just don’t seem right to you folks? Not concepts or metallurgical hogwash that we normally cover, but simple phrases and terms that are use way more than they should be and stick in your craw?
There are a whole bunch of terms that get thrown about in the industry that make so little sense that you have to wonder how they came up with it. Some have become clichéd catch phrases that we use without even thinking about it. Here are a few that always make me think, did you even think about what you were saying before using that term?:
razor sharp
this is one of the worse. Apparently anything with and edge on it can be "razor" sharp. I often hear swords called "razor" sharp... you couldn't give me a swords that had and edge geometry like a razor. Even blades that easily shave hair from your arm are not "razor" sharp. Razors are entirely different beasts from other blades they have an incredibly specialized edge an edge that is good for removing hair wile leaving the skin in a healthy condition. This one is bad and used so often we don't even think about how bad it is.Surgical steel What specific alloy is it that surgeons prefer?
Sheffield steel If I went to Sheffield to do a bloomery smelt would my steel automatically the best? Could I call it "Sheffield steel"? Come to think of it Ann Sheffield sells steel doesn't she? Hmmm... she may have something there. Ann wouldn't go there, she is good people, and one of my favorite vendors, but could I buy any of her offerings and say that my blades are made from "Sheffield steel"? Sheffield is just a town, I am sure a lot of steel was made there; some good, some not so good, but the word alone is all that seems to matter.
Spring steel Though many would like to think that this means 5160 since all springs are made from it, that is wrong. There a lists that classify different alloys as "spring steel" but I doubt you would find independent lists that were identical, since a spring can be made from any steel you want, good springs will use steel with proper fatigue strength but who says all manufactures care more about this than cost of production. Spring steel is what you make it into, not the alloy you start with, and the term has been so widely used we don't really get it anymore.
Heating the blade and plunging into water is "tempering"
grrrrrrr! This is so dead wrong and it will not go away! And looking at the etymology I don't think history supports this at all. We tend to think that this is just an obsolete term thing but I don't believe it. I think dunderheads outside of the industry trying to explain a process they did not understand to public mislabeled this in the not too distant past. I would be inclined to think that this bit of hogwash got put into the popular lexicon in the Victorian period when so much information and history was rewritten with all sorts of erroneous facts that were taken as definitive.martempering Aside from some subsequent auto-tempering effect this is a QUENCHING operation, tempering comes afterwards, at least it had better or you are going to have problems. This one is hard to go against since industry and the metallurgical field has embraced it- so it must be right! Apparently the industry had already fallen victim to the "temper" thing from the paragraph above and continued on with the error.
Damascus steel. Damascus is a town in Syria that is it. It is not wootz anymore than it is folded and welded material. Would be elitists will quickly try to impress with their knowledge on the subject by correcting you that damascus steel is wootz, but the stuff wasn’t made in Damascus, and the people who made didn’t call it Damascus, in fact they apparently didn’t even call it “wootz”. Somebody like Ann Feuerbach could list many names that were used to describe crucible steel in ancient times, but wootz isn’t one of them. It appears to be corruption of one of those more ancient terms, kind of like damascene becoming simply “Damascus”. Languages grow and evolve anything with an intricate pattern put into it was called damask, or damascened in the not too distant past, we have corrupted it quite recently. In the most common use of the word in the English language any steel with patterning in it could be called Damascus, heck a busy herring bone inlay could be “damascened”. Within this description you have pattern welding, crucible steel and others. 50 years ago if I told somebody they looked “gay” they would have replied that it was indeed a good day, today I had better be ready to duck! Languages evolve and change, their purpose is to communicate, when sticking to old, outdated terms defeats this purpose you need to roll with it and move on or you will spend every moment giving an etymological lesson to folks who don’t really care. That is why I call pattern welded or wootz “ Damascus”
So what about it? What are some terms that just don’t seem right to you folks? Not concepts or metallurgical hogwash that we normally cover, but simple phrases and terms that are use way more than they should be and stick in your craw?
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