Finally! The truth about "Silver Steel"

[Joe Chandler]

Found this little passage in a book I'm reading. (The Complete Guide to Sharpening by Leonard Lee. Chapter 3, page 20...never stop learning!) Since the topic of Silver Steel comes up quite a bit in reference to razors and their advertising verbiage, I thought this would be germane to the forums.

Silver Steel:
"This mark is most commonly found on old handsaws. One of the most irritating problems with early saws was the difficulty of keeping the steel bright, clean, and relatively frictionless in a kerf. Plain carbon steels rust quickly, as anyone who has left a carbon steel tool outside during a shower knows. The other problem was dealing with the constant tradeoff between hardness and toughness. If the blade was hardened to the point that the teeth stayed sharp for an extended time, the steel was usually too brittle, causing the blade to crack or break under stress. When it was discovered that adding a percentage of chromium to high carbon steel not only increased the hardness and toughness but also gave the steel a bright silvery finish that improved rust resistance, the alloy was quickly dubbed "Silver Steel" by some enterprising vendor. Needless to say, there was no silver in the alloy"

And know you know...

[JMS]

Found this little passage in a book I'm reading. (The Complete Guide to Sharpening by Leonard Lee. Chapter 3, page 20...never stop learning!) Since the topic of Silver Steel comes up quite a bit in reference to razors and their advertising verbiage, I thought this would be germane to the forums.

Silver Steel:
"This mark is most commonly found on old handsaws. One of the most irritating problems with early saws was the difficulty of keeping the steel bright, clean, and relatively frictionless in a kerf. Plain carbon steels rust quickly, as anyone who has left a carbon steel tool outside during a shower knows. The other problem was dealing with the constant tradeoff between hardness and toughness. If the blade was hardened to the point that the teeth stayed sharp for an extended time, the steel was usually too brittle, causing the blade to crack or break under stress. When it was discovered that adding a percentage of chromium to high carbon steel not only increased the hardness and toughness but also gave the steel a bright silvery finish that improved rust resisitance, the alloy was quickly dubbed "Silver Steel" by some enterprising vendor. Needless to say, there was no silver in the alloy"

And know you know...

...the rest of the story!

Thank you Paul Harvey!

[izlat]

That's weird

I do have chromized razors that keep their bright, and have tough and hard edges... So this part is not surprising.

However, I thought the TI razors which use Silver Steel do stain if you just look at them the wrong way maybe TI uses a special Silver Steel?

Cheers
Ivo

[ChrisL]

However, I thought the TI razors which use Silver Steel do stain if you just look at them the wrong way

Boy, you're not kidding, Ivo!

+1 on that.

Chris

[Joe Chandler]

That's weird

I do have chromized razors that keep their bright, and have tough and hard edges... So this part is not surprising.

However, I thought the TI razors which use Silver Steel do stain if you just look at them the wrong way maybe TI uses a special Silver Steel?

Cheers
Ivo

Really, the important part of the passage was that chromium was added to the steel. It makes the steel deep, rather than shallow, hardening. Probably, the TI steel has very high carbon and little chromium...just enough to get the hardening benefit without much in the way of stain resistance. There doesn't seem to be a standard for what is "silver steel", so I'm sure formulations vary.

[ernestrome]

That ain't the truth.

http://www.shef.ac.uk/hawley/collect...xamples-1.html

COMMENTS - These makers made razors from silver steel and marked them as such, but this one isn't. Other razormakers used silver steel. Messrs Rhodes of The Wicker, Sheffield, wrote a booklet on razors in 1824 having experimented with silver steel. Note that Pearce was using this metal for his razors. The instigator of this metal was Faraday in London, who got Sanderson of West Street, Sheffield to make samples of silver steel on his behalf and no doubt sold the steel to other razormakers.

Faraday was using silver in his steel.

It's true to say that there is no silver used in it's production today, but initially it was developed using silver by Michael Faraday.

http://books.google.com/books?id=_4j...uTflep_ZYXBHXM

[Joe Chandler]

That ain't the truth.

http://www.shef.ac.uk/hawley/collect...xamples-1.html


Faraday was using silver in his steel.

It's true to say that there is no silver used in it's production today, but initially it was developed using silver by Michael Faraday.

http://books.google.com/books?id=_4j...uTflep_ZYXBHXM

It appears from the articles you provided us that while Faraday may have, indeed, experimented with silver in steel, and even had a razor or two made from it, nothing in this article contradicts what I posted. Faraday may have had steel with a bit of silver in it for his experiments, but nothing in the article suggests any other maker who used "silver steel" did so. Faraday may have indeed sold his steel to other razor makers, but there's nothing to say how much was provided, or that any of them actually used his steel. It also doesn't say that Faraday was the developer of anything other than a few alloys he used for experments. I have never heard of Faraday as a major supplier of steel to the cutlery industry. As I've always maintained, "silver steel" is advertising verbiage. While I can understand your misapprehension, one person does not an entire type of steel change. The article, while seeming to infer that Faraday used the steel with silver in it for his razors, does not actually say so. It claims that "occasionally in later life Faraday would present one of his friends with a razor made of his own special steel." This comes after a mention of other alloys which apparently didn't do much. Also, the article explicitly states that silver steel was used for some time in making fenders, but doesn't elucidate whether it was Faraday's version or the chromium-added version (I suspect the latter). I have never seen a metallurgical analysis of "silver steel" which contains any silver. So your statement "that ain't the truth" seems to be inaccurate. Not saying you're wrong, but the information you've provided doesn't seem to contradict my source in any way but the most superficial.

It's possible that some makers actually used silver in their steel...I won't say you're 'wrong', but I would say it's not the norm, nor was it ever. I was talking about "in general" rather than a few isolated cases. I'm sure there's a maker out there who attemped to alloy his steel with potassium to make exploding steel, but it's not the norm. I found these pretty interesting, as well.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_steel
http://www.silver-steel.co.uk/SilverSteelBS1407.html (I believe in that analysis the Si is silcon and the S is Sulfur...the sulfur, at least, considered an impurity).

[Russel Baldridge]

I would think adding actual silver to a steel alloy would be precisely counterproductive in that it would more likely weaken the structure and possibly not add much more corrosion resistance than the chromium.

but that's being said without any "formal" metallurgical expertise... grain o' salt req'd.

[RobertFontaine]

A timely post for me. I've been cleaning up a Joseph Elliot "best silver steel" this week. I love the shine but the pitting is some serious work. I'm curious to see whether I can bring my regular steel to a similar polish that the silver steel takes.

- Bob

[Mike Blue]

Some time ago, I went through all the modern metallurgical texts I could find. In today's practices, silver steel shares the same characteristics as O-1 tool steel with slight differences in steel mill's forumlae.

It is quite possible that silver was tested experimentally, although with the seeming ease that it tarnishes alone, I don't know why they would have used it other than "I wonder what this will do?" I know of a present day knifemaker who has "welded" fine silver between layers of steel. It makes for a delightful pattern but unless the steel is the edge it doesn't cut worth much.

It's a good discussion. The more known about the foundations of the industry helps us all.